Sailing

Perhaps the biggest challenge I've had since Scott started school is letting go of being his teacher. I still scour websites that talk about teaching a child to read and find great books at the library that I know he will love. It's just that we have much less time to do any of these activities. I'm slowly learning to balance our limited afternoon time with lots of free play and some really fun activities to fill in the "holes" in his education. What I'm learning is that the greatest part of our situation is that his teachers can struggle with him on the boring stuff that he really needs to know (like handwriting) and I get to play by teaching the really fun stuff that they don't have time for in the classroom.

For instance, on Thursday, we all made boats and then tested to see if they would really float. It was in conjunction with the Noah's Ark unit I did with Andrew and learning the letter "B" for boat. Both boys had a blast designing their vessels.

When I first proposed the project, Andrew ran out the door to the car, pointed to the tailpipe and said, "I want one of these on my boat." It took a little convincing to let him know that we could not just pull it off of the car.


Scott cut an egg carton and attached a mast.


We all tested to see if they would float. Look who was eager to get in on the action! Amanda is always in the middle of the action.


Of course our little activity led to very wet clothes and eventually baths. Why not - they were already wet and in the bathroom!


They had their pajamas on at 4:30! I think it was a record. Too bad I couldn't put them to bed then. Derrick had PTO, so it would have given me a free evening. Instead, we ate dinner and went to Pajama-Rama at the library, a bedtime story time.