A Beautiful Morning

     We had a slow, beautiful morning yesterday.  According to our schedule, we were going to a pick-up ball game then story time and maybe time at the splash pad, BUT once we started our table time, nobody wanted to leave! After devotional we played the game "Funglish" which is all about describing words. Kyle (4.5) laughed and laughed about describing the toilet, Shawn (7) loved showing Kyle the words "black eye" with actions for guessing, and Collin (almost 16) tried to get the little kids to guess candy cane. That is a great one for thinking of adjectives. I then showed the kids how to play Rumikub, but they were having a hard time with some of the rules so we switched it up a bit. I love the games that include academic skills and we've done them a lot (their favorite game is Uno, so Ann (2.5) can learn colors and numbers, and they can learn how to follow rules, matching numbers, and sometimes I have them add the numbers together.) We read stories and more stories then talked about honey bees for Bee Week with ENWC. Bees are fascinating! I showed them a clip of the wiggle dance, we listened to Flight of the Bumble Bee, made some bees out of our pattern blocks, and I had the kids draw a bee to make a kite for flying. We didn't finish that yet, so that will be today's activity.

The Boys' Bees

These are made by the boys, one includes a stinger, legs, eyes and antenna! Mr. 4 also made a hive with babies in each section. I love their creativity.

     Days like this make me so grateful for homeschool, AND for the morning basket/kid school idea. This time is still my most favorite thing of all. We get to sit and learn, build relationships and have beautiful things in our lives because of it. Thank you homeschoolers who have found and shared the good things! This day and age is really the best time to be an "out of the box schooler." There's support and ideas everywhere, at least on the internet!
     This summer has been the best so far when it comes to schooling. When kids are in public school there's always a rough time because nobody is used to being together all day. For us it has been a seamless transition, because there's nothing to adjust to! Shawn said, "Other kids don't do school in the summer." When I asked him what he wanted to stop- did he want to stop table time? Math games on Adaptedmind.com? No! It made me happy to be a homeschool mom. We're doing about the same things, but our summer has actually been more busy than the school year. We've got baseball 4 times a week (practices and games), which actually ended with a swimming party last night so maybe we'll breathe a little more. Then we have story times, nature days, plus other story time options or summer activities sponsored by groups we're in. And people says that homeschoolers have no socialization!