Finishing . . . creatively

Yeah, so a week or so ago I wrote about finishing strong. And now I am going to share with you how we are finishing . . . creatively! We leave for a family vacation this weekend and our goal was to finish up "first grade" before we left, knowing we would continue with math and reading over the summer. Well, how do you finish 5 history chapters, 6 weeks of science plus all the rest in 3 weeks? Creatively! As I looked through our history notebook for the year I was convinced we did "enough." OK, way more than enough, this is first grade and my poot child has an overachiever for a mother. So, we read the last few chapters a few a week, a little coloring, notebooking and some extra books later, call it good. Science. sigh. The weakness of our homeschool. In all fairness to my type A personality, it did get "done," just not quite the way I envisioned. There is just not enough time in the day to get all those great experiments I really wanted to do (read: perhaps if I got off the computer we could have completed a few more of those experiments) ;) So, how to fit 6 weeks into 2. Our last unit of science was a plant unit. Well, Ron did plant a garden with the kids this spring. huh, perhaps we can redeem this unit after all. A little internet searching, printing, and we made an awesome lapbook on plants and flowers, memorized the plant and flower poems, added pics of the garden and call it good (details to come in case anyone is interested in that).

We were supposed to finish the rest this week. We are down to math, spelling, and reading. My intentions were to carry these into the summer after a few weeks off. Well, the school room is under construction and I couldn't get to our books today. There are shelves and cabinets everywhere. Half our books are in the downstairs bathroom. I assured Ron I would kill him if the toilet overflowed. Where in the world did all this stuff come from? Having Ron help me clean out the school room 2 weeks before convention was probably NOT a good idea. He is now thoroughly convinced I need nothing. : /  Not likely.

The kids had no problem finding all the games that were displaced. I thankfully had the foresight to take out our math review and reading book for today. Other than that, I think we played Zingo, Dr. Seuss Matching, How Tall am I?, and Word on the Street Jr. (Hey! That TOTALLY counts as spelling for today!). And dare I admit I watched TV in the middle of the day? Where in the world did all those extra hours come from?!? Not doing school was . . . ummm nice? Eh, who needs spelling in this summer, just narrowed our summer plans to math and reading.

I am by personality and philosophy a classical homeschooler. Just the term "Relaxed homeschooler" stresses me out. Well, our homeschool got a nice needed dose of "relaxed" this week. Since I can't get to the books, we might as well call it done. (Well, after a math test tomorrow. I think I can find that. :) And did I mention the toddler was throwing up tonight? yeah, definitely done.

I still say we finished strong, just creatively. ;) So, I am calling it. Let the summer begin!