5/20 through 5/25... Winding down a bit...

I finished the last of my finals yesterday, so now I get a few weeks (I think about 3) off before I start summer classes!

Sunday: We went to Chuck E. Cheese's for C.O.'s birthday dinner with my inlaws and my dad (it was actually his birthday Sunday). The kids had an absolute blast! C.O. got great presents, including a gorgeous pop-up book on dinosaurs.

Monday: I took the day off from work to spend the day with the kids. We made cupcakes (on Sunday) to take to C.O.'s arts class. C.J. and I hung out while C.O. made a world map and a fingerprint painting, then we had lunch, played at the school playground, and headed off to 4H to help make dog treats, with more cupcakes in hand. C.O. was thrilled when he got a birthday present from Jenny's Cameron, and the two of them rushed off to play as soon they got tired of making dog biscuits. C.J. played "coat yourself with flour" with Cassia - nice messy game, and of course I had chosen that day to wear black... oops. We brought home a couple of treats for our dog, who really enjoyed them by the way! At home, C.O. opened presents from M and I, and then we had his special brthday dinner, all volcano-themed (mashed potato & gravy "volcanoes", chocolate lava cake). We skipped any bookwork for the day, although I did get C.O. to read a book to me.

Tuesday: I printed out some dinosaur pages from Learning Page dot com. While I read out loud from 2 books on dinosaurs (one fact, one fiction), the kids happily colored T.rex and triceratops. Then C.J. worked on a counting worksheet while C.O. reviewed his spelling words. We finished up with C.J. identifying the dinosaur that was different and C.O. doing a page of math. After dinner, C.O. spent an hour or so with M working on projects from C.O.'s new set of Snap Circuits. A very productive day overall!

Wednesday: C.O.'s last day of class, since the upcoming Monday is a holiday, and next Wednesday is the class field trip. I gave the kids the day off from homeschooling because they were going to my mom's house overnight, since I had finals Wednesday night and Thursday morning, so it was a very quiet afternoon here! I spent the time cleaning and studying.

Thursday: We worked on more dinosaur pages, another dinosaur book, math and phonics. C.O. read out loud to me, and both he and C.J. spent a lot of time playing with their LeapPads (they both got new books for them this week). C.J. is getting very good at identifying all the letters by sight and sound, as well as identifying numbers and matching them to groups of objects. C.O. is starting to try spelling out a lot more words by sounding them out - sometimes he's a bit off but overall I am impressed with his spelling abilities! One a side note, when I picked the kids up Thursday morning after my final, my mom was on the phone with one of my great-aunts bragging about how well C.O. is doing with homeschooling! Made my day! At dinner, the kids asked for candlelight, and about halfway through dinner, some wax dripped off. It reminded me of stalactites, and the kids were fascinated by it, so I pulled out a few books and dug around until I found a good cave picture with loads of stalactites and stalagmites. We looked at the picture for a while and then melted some tiny crayon bits in the candle, which also dripped out, making various colors of "stalactites". It kept us busy for over an hour! Warning though, this is definately a parent-assisted "project"!

Today (Friday): I spent part of my day so far looking at transfer requirements for college. I also found out that the college I plan on transferring to offers the option (for working adults, parents, etc.) of attending class one full Saturday a month, and doing the rest of the work at home through reading, writing, and online seminars for degree completion - this sounds like it would work really, really well for me. C.J. has ballet this afternoon, then I hope to get some math and language arts taken care of. I also printed out a booklet titled "About Me" (I think... not quite sure of the title offhand) for C.O. to fill out as a neat way to remember his kindergarten year later on, so we might do something in that too.