Between School Years

I have mentioned before that school is an ongoing, year-round endeavor in our household. We take breaks when there are special events, holidays or vacations. We also run on a relaxed schedule during part of the summer. That is where we are with school work right now. Samuel is participating in a "speech camp" this week and his older brother is participating in a "history camp." Both of these occur in the morning. In the afternoon, after we have had our lunch and taken a rest, I come up with a bit of work for the boys to do. Samuel has been filling in his calendar, writing in a journal, finishing up his religion book. I also found some workbooks at a wonderful teacher supply store up in Maine.



The store where I got the workbooks is called Play and Learn Toys and Teaching Resources and it is located in Freeport. It has become a family tradition to visit while we are on vacation here. My children love it for all the cool toys. They have a fun Thomas the Tank Engine display and it kept them entertained while I took a long look at the teacher supplies. I am always so tempted to buy all kinds of posters, workbooks and bulletin board supplies, but this year I restricted myself to just a few workbooks and stickers. I will have Samuel work on the two books shown in this photo during the month of August. They are both from Carson-Dellosa Publishing. I really like the "All About Me" book. It is 64 pages long and in it he gets to draw all kinds of pictures and fill in blanks to tell about himself. It's a pre-k to grade 1 level and it is perfect for Samuel. It's easy, the pages are visually "do-able" for him (no color or distracting pictures) and the assignments are short. Also, there is a sticker chart built in to the back cover of the book. I am hoping that Samuel will enjoy filling it in and feel a sense of accomplishment. I'm looking forward to him completing the pages where he tells us what his favorite color is, and what he wants to be when he grows up. He doesn't usually talk about these kinds of things on his own. (In the past he has answered "firefighter" when he is asked what he wants to be when he grows up. I'm curious to see if he'll say that again. It's hard to know if he really means it. He never demonstrates that outside of being asked that question. I wouldn't put it past Samuel to just say an answer to get people to stop asking him the question.)

The Scissor Skills book is also very easy, at least it starts off that way. It looks like it will get much more appropriately challenging as he works through it. I ended up getting scissor skill books for Samuel's younger brother and sister as well. I never would have allowed my two oldest boys to try scissors at age 2, but I am comfortable letting my little girl, age 2, do so now. I make sure she only tries it while I am close by at the table with her. She just loves "working" at the table like her big brothers do!

My big job for the month of August is to write up a new IEP for Samuel, choose and order curriculum materials for him, and organize work for my two other sons. I already have their books. This is the first year that I am using a pre-organized curriculum for both of his brothers, in which I "enrolled" both boys and will send off some of their work for grading. I may end up ordering some of Samuel's workbooks from the same place, but there is no way that he can follow a packaged curriculum.