Play Ball

My son is a member of our local little league. As part of the end of the year festivities, the league is invited to Turner Field in Atlanta to parade around the field before the big league game begins. We have waited until this moment to take our son to a baseball game (our eight year old daughter has been several times), and we are so glad we did wait. The anticipation, excitement, and finally the thrill of seeing that huge field was WORTH IT! Here all of the teams are, standing in the Hank Aaron ramp, waiting to enter the field:

As they looked out of the tunnel, this is what they saw:

And finally, on the way around to exit the field, I got a smile and wave from my husband and son. Wow - what an awesome thing for a father and son to share.

While some people would just look at this as a fun family outing, I, on the other hand, looked at it as a homeschool adventure. I am learning to see everything in this light - and it's pretty cool. As we were driving downtown to the field, and also to dad's office to pick him up, we had lots of discussions about freeways and signs. My son has recently completed a lapbook about roadsigns, so this was a great review! My daughter has been working on making change. If we gave the parking attendant $20 and the fee for parking was $12, how much change do we get? (and yes, it is a rip off!)

At the stadium we saw lots of statues for baseball greats - Warren Spahn and Hank Aaron to name a few. My husband had talked to both of the kids the night before and shown them his baseball cards - another mini-lesson in history and sports.

Right now my son is obsessed with numbers. He has recently really gotten the concepts of addition and subtraction. The scoreboard was a perfect way to talk about some of these things with him - how many runs ahead were the Braves? How many innings did we have left? How many more balls until the player could walk to first base? If you are buying bags of cotton candy at $3 each, how much does that cost? And if you give the man $10, how much change should you get? In addition to the numbers, there was so much READING to be done at the game - reading all of the players' names on the jumbotron, all of the advertising, etc...

After the first inning a rain delayed had to be called -- but it was very interesting to watch how the workers on the field covered it so quickly and how the constantly tended to the field to keep it in the best condition. My daughter noted there were 24 people working on the crew, and my son noted the rain delay was 45 minutes, with an extra 15 minutes to prepare the field again -- all amounting to a one hour delay. Wow! That's a lot for a five and eight year old to process. I am willing to bet they didn't look at this outing as "school", but it sure provided them with a day's worth of education.

At 10:30 p.m. we decided it was time to go home, even though it was only the bottom of the 6th. Both my husband and I noted how impressed we were with how closely the kids followed the game and what FUN we had with them. We have two very great children.

Rambling

We had a relaxing, but productive weekend in our house. It began with a busy day on Saturday of yardwork, cleaning out JUNK from the playroom to begin the conversion to schoolroom, a visit to the YMCA, a birthday party, and Johnny's Pizza. As I was driving to the YMCA I wondered when all of a sudden my life became so busy. When the children were little we had a lot more time because there were a lot less friends and activities. Now, however, it seems like most every weekend is taken up with something. I just need to be careful that our busy-ness is worthwhile and that we have enough quality time to spend together as a family.

On Sunday we visited a new church in our area. It was Presbyterian USA church, and the service felt quite similar to the Lutheran church we have been attending for the past five years. After we left my husband and I both agreed, however, we just didn't get any warm or friendly feelings from the church. I was sad, because I am desperately wanting to find a place to worship where all of my family will feel comfortable. I think, though, that this God's way of making me slow down (you think I would get the point by now, right?) and take some time to find a place that fits. It is interesting to worship in different places and I'm thankful for the opportunity to visit so many beautiful places of worship in our area. I am also starting to see that it's not so much your order of worship or long standing traditions that matter, it is your relationship with Jesus and how your community of faith enhances your ability to use that relationship for the good of others.

We tried to go to an Army Ground Forces band concert on Sunday evening, but it was rained out! Thankfully, our good friends thought it was a great idea to meet at the local Mexican restaurant and have some margaritas and a little dinner, too. If you click on the link to their blog you will be blessed by their adoption story, soon to be stories!

Today was the first day of swim lessons for both of my children. We love the woman who we took swim lessons from last year and will do the same again this summer. My 8 year old daughter is on the synchronized swim team and my 5 year old son is taking basic swimming lessons. Our entire summer centers around these lessons, because they occur twice each week. The only other summer commitments are a VBS and one day camp for each of the kids. SO, it is my goal to focus on myself this summer and make it to the YMCA at least three times a week and lose some weight in the process. My back issues have prevented me from being as active as I would like, but with some good physical therapy and proper exercises I am feeling better and ready to get back into shape! Our local YMCA is a beautiful facility and I love the indoor pool! The kids have gotten involved in their tennis program, and my husband works out there when he doesn't go to the gym downtown by his office. I think a YMCA membership is a great investment for a homeschooling family!

It seems that I've rambled a bit more in this post and not really talked much about homeschooling at all. Funny, but that's how my thoughts have been this weekend - I've had lots on my mind, and haven't really thought about "school" that much - which is OK because I needed a break. Tomorrow will begin with our normal morning routine and a light schedule of math and handwriting, after which we will go the YMCA for swimming and workout time for mom!

Relaxed Summer Schooling

Well, I really want the kids to stay in a routine this summer, so that "school" doesn't surprise them in August. Sticking to a schedule seems to be the best way to do this, at least for my children. We all function much better with a routine. So, this morning we got up at our normal time (7:00 a.m.) and after breakfast we read part of a book (more on that later) and then Anna did math while Grant had computer time.

Now, back to the book we are reading: Right now both of my kids are at an age where they enjoy the Magic Treehouse books. Anna has read many of them independently a couple of years ago (but really likes for me to read them again) , and my son is just beginning to show an interest in listening to longer books. At the Scholastic book fair a couple of weeks ago I picked up "Moonlight on the Magic Flute". Since I am a former elementary music teacher I really like anything having to do with composers, so I figured this was a great place to start. All of the Magic Treehouse books are great in my opinion, and I would like to work through several of them this summer with the kids. I'm thinking of a poster to keep track of the ones we read -- something like "Our Summer Treehouse".... we'll just have to see how that turns out.

I went to the Crayola website and found a coloring page of Mozart so the kids colored while they listened to me read. When we had finished our chapters for the day I then played some of Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" for them. I highly recommend an album for children entitled "Beethoven's Wig", which takes classical music and plays it in the original form, but then also gives another version with silly lyrics. Kids love this! I used it a lot when my daughter was in public school and I would teach music to her class once a week. We made composer/composition notebooks based on these pieces and the kids remembered the music and always asked for more! To see a video of some of this music click here! This music has won a lot of awards. We have both "Beethoven's Wig" and "Beethoven's Wig 2".

If you have any ideas to share about summer schooling activities, I would love to hear them!