My Summer Homeschooling Experiment: Day 1

In my mind today was the first official day of summer. The start of the "summer semester" in the Minton house. My blog reading over the last few months (since there actually was no blog reading before the last few months) has opened my eyes to many different types of moms who manage their homes in many different ways. One example is homeschooling. I usually put homeschoolers firmly in the off-their-rocker catergory... I suppose some of them may be. But many of my new mommy role models are incredibly normal, except for being AWESOME, and guess what??? Almost every single one homeschools! Well, I'm one of the most undisciplined people I know, so I'm not about to try anything stupid right away.



But... Summer is very long. And just today my 5-year-old was diagnosed with ADHD. The easiest way for me to cope with nearly 3 months trapped in the house with my 3 kids also happens to be the best summer scenario for them too. And to keep myself organized and inspired I'll be attempting to imitate my favorite homeschoolers. I'm not sure I'll succeed. In fact I'm likely to fail multiple times a week. So I guess I'll learn along with the kids then. : )



Boy, I sound very boring this evening. Possibly because it's the middle of the night and I should really be asleep. Oh well, better get on with it. I hope my adorable kids in the pictures make up for my lack of wit in this post. I'll work on that, ok?



Day 1 didn't really start with a bang. Before nap we managed to clean up our girl's room a little (which I made a mess of when I organized the oldest's room over spring break, lol), eat some watermelon, and our big accomplishment was playing with our "rainbow rice". Found the idea on pinterest from this blog. We used old Easter egg die and vinegar in ziplock bags to color rice, about a cup in each bag, let it dry overnight, and used it for sensory play. The kids had a field day for about half an hour. Mixing it, burying things in it, throwing it in the air and down the slide. Making it was almost as interesting as playing with it and made no mess at all! My only suggestion for other mommies trying this is that if you want to do patterns or color mixing or anything cool and educational... Set it all up before their little eyes touch it.