Summer Time

Summer time has been so great with my girls at home. This year I wanted to try an idea I had heard about where you let them set their own goals for what they want to work on and make a visual board of what goals they have achieved. It has worked great. Here is our board so far.

 Eliza has been working extremely hard on her typing practice goals this summer. She has gotten faster with more difficult sentences at a higher level of accuracy. Seriously she has practiced for 30 to an hour almost everyday. She has also had a drawing goal of practicing drawing the same thing different ways everyday and then hanging the one she likes the best.  In addition to those goals, she has been working on piano, scripture everyday, and a couple of math problems everyday. The math problems has been fun and challenging for me and John too, with some of the problems having up to five variables. Other problems we draw out diagrams and figure it out visually. This book says 5th grade +, but we have found that it is quite a big harder than a lot of the 5th grade math that Eliza was used to working on.

But it is has been fun, and we have enjoyed figuring these out together. John has had to remind me of quite of few math rules that I had forgotten.

Miriam has had a couple of gymnastics goals: handstands, cartwheels, and now bridges. She has also had some drawing goals. In addition to that she has done piano, scriptures, xtra math, workbook pages. These pages are more on grade level, and she whips them out no problem.



Holland has "two works" as she calls it: preschool pages and reading lesson. She does pretty well with them depending on the week. I also try to read a least one book to her a day, but I am not very diligent at that. She has had a hard time since starting summer break. I think the pretty big change in routine really through her for a loop. (Holland is actually shouting right now in the other room, "I don't want to do reading lesson ANY MORE. I got some candy from the bishop. MIRIAM AND ELLIE. I live here!!!")
In addition to those things, we try to make it to the gym every day. And they have had swimming lessons. I haven't really taken too many (or any!) pictures of this. They have a table set up at the gym for older kids where they do activities in a tic tac toe  (i.e. color a picture, play checkers, play ping pong, etc.) and then they get a prize. They have gotten a lot of prizes. That is definitely their kind of jam.
On Fridays, Eliza has had a standing playdate with a friend at the Y. I guess she is old enough now to swim solo after passing a swim test every time. So she swims with Nola, rinses off, changes clothes, and plays in other parts of the gym (the spin room, teen room, gymnasium), until I am done with my class and showering (typically 9 - 11am). It is has been fun for her, although she keeps getting sunburned on her face.
Eliza has also had a summer of play dates. She has been invited over a bunch of times, has this standing playdate, and she even earned inviting a friend over here. There is a new girl in her church class, and we have been getting to know that family well the last few weeks.
We have also done swimming lessons with mixed results. I feel like Miriam and Eliza are really excelling. They are doing great. They're in the most advanced class and working on their strokes. Holland on the other hand is in the most beginner class and is, if anything, regressing. This isn't because she is scared of the water, no it is because she is scared of people and won't follow directions. So yeah, it is a little frustrating. She was in the most beginner class for the first session, but because she didn't like the kids in the second session class (in that same level) she wouldn't cooperate and went to the special teacher where it was essentially just playing in water. I don't know when she is going to learn to swim. Maybe just when she is old enough to be a little more reasonable??
Overall though, I love the time I have with my girls in summer. It is definitely exhausting, but I love it. Doing activities, work time, and then (if we have extra time) the 'want to' list makes for a jam packed day, but these girls are amazing. I really do feel like the luckiest momma in the whole world.