End of a school year - Well, yes and no...

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks
Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all.....

Summer Vacation -

Remember that little ditty?
Did you sing it?

As homeschooler's summer vacation is not exactly the same as it was for my husband and I when we were kids going to a traditional brick and mortar school. We don't have the testing now for our 9 year-old son that we had to gear up for, we don't have that longing for summer and no school that the months of May and June brought to us as kids.
Our son, The Red Ranger, has a totally different outlook - May and June are time to take off a little more time for family summer activities before everyone else has off and does them. He gets to enjoy the days without the crowds that will eventually come. We take breaks a bit more often and spend more time on history as Memorial Day and the historical events that early June bring - Midway and D-Day.
We homeschool year-round now, it just seemed to happen that way over time. We transition into the next grade over the summer months giving extra time to maybe subjects that were a little harder this year or might need a little extra practice. We move ahead in subjects where The Red Ranger excels so that he doesn't get bored. We tend to hit the books harder in July and August when being outside is harder for me with my asthma or just too hot for being outside. It's easy to adjust with a year-round schedule, at least for us, to still enjoy the summer but get that learning in when we can or need to depending on the day. We take a break at the beginning of the brick and mortar school year in September to again enjoy less crowds and shorter lines during the weekdays.

It all just seems easier in this fast paced society we all find ourselves in, the rush here and there, the demands everywhere from countless people. It just seems to work for us this way, to enjoy that time together as a family when the moments appear rather than wait for the weekend or summer vacation. I'm sure it would be different if my husband had weekends off instead, but he's schedule varies and more often than not he's off one or two weekdays and so we adjusted.
We adjusted when we began to homeschool and its been adjusting ever since to a point where its more comfortable and it works well...for now...will we need to adjust again?
Probably - most likely.
Most definately when we finally buy our house at the end of summer, early September.

So, here we will still have pencils and erasable pens (The Red Rangers fav!) and books....
but we'll also have...airplane carriers and battleships, fighters and subs as we learn more this year about World War II and Midway and then that will transition into America's fight for independence for July and so on....its like that mouse and its cookie and milk isn't it?
.....Then in September when its all about back to school.....
we'll be at the zoo or shore, something like that....maybe just maybe we'll make up our own little ditty -

Homeschooling is.....
math in your pj's,
science in the fridge, (Oh, I hope not!)
history at a battlefield or on the history channel,
poetry in the park or writing in the sand by the ocean...

:-)

If you are gearing up for end of the year - have fun!
If you are schooling year round, clink the lemonade glass with us!

Story Cubes and Math Dice

For Christmas, The Red Ranger, received two presents that we had placed on our Amazon Wish List with the intent of using them for lessons. Oddly enough, since opening them yesterday for our homeschool, he has continued to play with them - last night and into today, one of our days off.

I consider this a BONUS! 

Many times I use or re-purpose games for use in our homeschool, make stuff up as we go and every now and then I find perfect games to fit in with what we are doing.

The first gift were Rory's Story Cubes from GameWright.
There are 9 six-sided cubes each with a different picture on each side. There are several ways to play but basically the idea is throw "X" number of cubes and use those images as a story starter. Great for creative writing, oral storytime, party games.

We had a ton of fun playing with these and they will work great for The Red Ranger's writing.
They say ages 8+ but I don't see why younger children couldn't use 1-3 or 4 dice to tell stories. Since there are several ways to play with them all ages should benefit from them.
There is also a set of Action/Verb - Story Cubes....which just so happens to be next on our list of purchases when my Amazon Gift Cards start piling up again from my SwagBucks!
They do have a website, although ours were purchased through Amazon, in fact we haven't even checked out the website...we are simply having too much fun playing with them.
The Website is: www.storycubes.com

The other gift was Math Dice from Thinkfun.

You roll the two 12-sided dice first add or multiply the numbers and that becomes your "target number", then roll the three blue 6-sided dice - combine those numbers and see whose roll comes closet to the "target number".
They can be used for addition/subtraction/multiplication/division/powers/roots and more.
Ages 8-Adult (again I'm sure they can be used for younger children), all ages and math levels and multiple players.
We haven't checked out their website either but here's the web address for it - www.thinkfun.com/mathdice

We are loving both of these and can't wait to get the other Verb Story Cubes, I've also added them to the new Amazon Store here on the blog, I've added a tab for the Store at the top of the blog. Its one way of showing you the items we use in our homeschool and in general in one spot in case you are interested in getting them for yourself. Sometimes the things we use are out of print or discontinued, in fact quite a few were purchased through Amazon Associates and through Ebay used.
So far through Amazon Associates I've made a whopping .71 cents in a year and a half...good thing I'm not doing this for money...LOL!
I remember starting out homeschooling and being completely lost, we were accidental homeschoolers, I hadn't planned on it at all. Finding the tools, curriculum, everything was very hard and from time to time I found blogs and other homeschoolers that had paved the way for me - it didn't mean that what worked in their homeschools or homes would work for us but a lot of times it did and I was always very grateful - still am.......so if I can add things from time to time to help out - I will....



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