summer ambitions

[flea]

I'm all, like, crazy lately, so I;m making plans to keep up Casper's school learnin' over the summer. We attended the kickoff for the summer reading program at the library on Saturday (tap dancer! - get it - kickoff?) and then I came up with this in the car this morning (with kibbitzing from Casper, who picked Friday):

Math Mondays
* Money exercises
* Algebricks
* CRCT practice worksheets
* Abacus
* Wooden shape works
* Fractions (also works with cooking)

Music Tuesdays
* water in glasses to make a xylophone
* rhythms with Peter's drum
* what can we make a drum out of/kitchen musical instruments
* learn a new song (youtube, cd)

Postcard-Writing Wednesdays
* Grandparents
* Friend away for summer
* Mrs. B (girl scout leader moving away)
* Cousin R

Thursdays - TBD - I have two days to come up with something! Maybe cooking. Or bike practice.

French Fridays
* vocab
* Look for short videos online
* Look for stories online or at public library

Swimming Saturdays
* practice at the pool!

Science Sundays
* mentos and diet coke
* kite flying
* baking soda volcano
* measuring liquids
* work science lesson into house project (measuring, level)

Reading Everyday
* short books Casper reads to us (one a day)
* Long books to read out loud (as a family?)
o Rabbit Hill
o Final Spiderwick Book
o Misty of Chincoteague
o Little Princess
o fairy tales

We'll see how long it takes me to burn out. I figure I can make it two weeks...

Comments

[sara]

...I think our summer plans so far are, um, "Read more comics." And if it ever stops pouring, we want to do some camping off the bike. And Herself has a week of camp each month, because I figured we needed something to break up the monotony that is reading comics, pursuing consulting contracts, keeping up our various forms of language practice (I am writing a grant to do linguistics stuff in an academickal sense! Cross your fingers! Unemployed archaeologists will do anything for money, it's true....), and maybe some gardening.

You are much more organized, is what I'm saying. I can't even imagine having activities for specific days.

[sedge]

Baking soda and vinegar can also be used to fill a balloon. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmzBf3XGsOE -- that guy has a bunch of fun kid science. (All this sort of thing falls smack in the middle of T's interests, you see.)

[flea]

I work much better to a schedule than spontaneously. Naming the days makes it MUCH easier for me. Casper was all, "It's Math Monday! yay!"

Mostly these are half-hour projects to keep the TV off after camp.

[forodwaith]

The NFB French kids' site (http://onfjeunesse.ca/) is good for short films. TFO & Radio-Canada have semi-educational games,
http://www.tfo.org/jeux/
http://www.radio-canada.ca/jeunesse/petits/jeux/index.asp