Summer-y Stuff...

I guess you could say we more or less homeschool year 'round, since I do have "light" plans for the summer. Summer is a time for field trips, good stories, time out at the coast, and with friends, as well as a little learning.

On this summer's agenda:

The Girl will continue to work on reading skills with Reading Horizons. If she does about 4 lessons a week, she'll be done by September!

The Boy will continue to work on multiplication and division skills, using Khan Academy.

I'll be reading aloud a fair amount, and I'd like to get them out on some historically-related field trips. I was just commenting on Jessica's blog how great it is that they have so many history-related areas to visit there, and then realized we have quite a few in our own backyard, so to speak! Possibilities there include:

Kule Loklo

The Mission San Francisco Solano (Sonoma Mission). Other possible, fairly close missions would be the Mission San Rafael and the Mission Dolores.

Fort Ross

The Petaluma Adobe (which we've been to a number of times) and Lachryma Montis (Vallejo's Sonoma house)

Alcatraz, and maybe Angel Island

Muir Woods

The California Museum

Gold Rush Days in Sacramento, or perhaps a trip to Placer County might be fun!

And there are a couple of non-history-related places I'd like to go... the NEW Exploratorium (we have been to the old one), and The Lawrence Hall of Science. I would take the kids to one of the Native American museums nearby, but I've been, and they are a little on the disappointing side, stuffy and not super child friendly.

The only other "study" on the agenda is a loose study of the nighttime sky. I love Jacqueline Mitton's beautiful books, and I ordered a vintage book as well. I already have A Child's Introduction to the Night Sky on hand. I just want to enjoy the night sky while the weather is gorgeous, to get the kids a little familiarized with constellations and such, nothing too heavy or serious. I do want them to each track the phases of the moon for a month or two (an idea from one of the Oak Meadow books I once had on hand), to become more aware of the moon cycles.

Other than that, I've been reorganizing my bookcases. I'm getting rid of ALL the homeschool bits and pieces we'll never use (very "schooly" workbooks and the like), and am categorizing the rest. I have a couple of shelves each for science and history materials, a shelf for math books, a shelf of encyclopedias, and so on and so forth. I think we'll use materials more, like our collection of science project books, if we have them readily at hand! I have two big bags of books ready for donation, am sending a couple to a friend, and by the end of summer, I should be ready for fall!

Here's to a good week!