summer buzz kill momma

Last year I wrote this post about making my kids work over the summer.  Well, I make no apologies once again as I burst bubbles around here making my kids do school work over summer.  

In everything the teachers sent home at the end of school implored parents to work with their kids over the summer so to avoid the "summer slide."  My friend Shannon, who is a first grade teacher, told me that part of the reason to have kids work over the summer is not just to retain information or learn new things but to keep their brain in the habit of learning.  Apparently, like an unused muscle that grows weak,  children (and I would imagine adults) who take long breaks without learning actually "forget" how to learn, making it harder to get back in the swing of things when school starts.   In my experience, the transition back to school is painful enough and we don't need any lazy brains making it harder. 

All the hubbub of the first 2 weeks of summer around here made it very difficult to get in the swing of summer.  I found that when the wedding and Camp Winni were over, the girls would just look at me when they would wake up, bleary-eyed and exhausted and mumble, "Can I watch TV?"  The first few days were a blur of trying to keep them happy, trying to decide how much TV I could, in good conscience allow them, and maintain my new-found zen.  They were unmotivated and cranky and I knew that we all needed a large dose of structure.  

I gotta tell you in case you think I am a total buzz kill:  my kids LOVE structure.

Last year I made them work, but maybe this year, it was time to give them a little more freedom of choice. 

I got up early the next morning (actually I get up early every morning) and made a plan. I started cutting and writing and taping and when the kids woke up they were intrigued to find this:

"What is that?  What do we do?  How does it work?"

Using my best impression of a teacher, I explained my system asking them to hold all questions and comments to the end.  

Here's how it works:  the week begins on Saturday (because that's what day it was when I got the idea).  All their cards, both work cards and TV/screen time cards are on the left side of the dotted line.  When they complete a card, they move it to the right side.   They have until Friday at bedtime to move their cards over to the right.  They are in charge of managing their time to accomplish this.  (I do give them a lot of information about what we are doing each week so they can plan ahead for days we might be gone all day or driving far and they might want to save their TV cards for the ride.)  

If they complete all their work cards by the deadline, we pay them $3.  If they don't, they pay us $3.  

The TV cards can pretty much be used at will and can be banked if they aren't all used during the week.  

Ella's work cards are more extensive than Maya's with longer work increments and additional math cards.  She needs to master multiplication before she begins 4th grade in the fall so she has "flashcard" cards as well.

The idea of this system is to have them work but also to learn to manage their time and to have a little more power and choice in how they spend their time.  It is less of me telling them what to do and more of them just looking at the wall and figuring it out.  

We also came up with some summer goals to work on.  I helped Maya write hers and it is something about not interrupting and making unnecessary noise in the car and at the table.  

Ella wrote this one for herself:

And I wrote this one:

Also, wanting to give the kids more say and ownership over their summer, I asked them what they wanted to make sure we did this summer.  Their list was more simple than I would have expected.  (And, interestingly, Ella reiterated that she wants to play with her sister more.)  I was pleased that "week long camping trip" did not make the list.  Neither did "fly to the moon."  I was disappointed, however, that purge the house, paint the play set and wash the mildew off the siding did not make the list.

Here's the lowdown about this system:  overall it is hugely successful for us.  I am proud of what the girls are doing and especially how much Maya's reading is improving with such rigorous practice.  I am proud of how they are in charge of it.  

However,  I both applaud and kick myself for giving them 6 hours of TV time a week.  I don't know about your kids, but TV makes my kids (especially one of them) incredibly cranky so less is better.  But less is less and I will be honest and say that it is hard on me.  I am so pleased they are not sucked into a TV all summer long but sometimes, on long days on end of being the only adult with them, I just want to turn the TV on and have some well-deserved peace and quiet. 

So the system is hard work for all of us, making it very equitable all around. 

In the end there is something very good about being forced, and having your kids be forced, to problem solve down time without the aid of electronics.   It feels very old school.  

must-read

For anyone who is looking for a truly incredible book to read with a child, you can look no further.

 

I'm not talking about Harry Potter (which might be the most fun book to share with an eight-year-old) but about one of the most poignant and eloquently written books I've ever read:  The miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.

 

A few months ago we were in the library and I was discussing books with my friend Monique.  Our daughters are the same age and we were comparing notes. She told me about this book and said it was one of the favorites she had read with her daughter.  I took it out that day.  We renewed it as many times as allowed while Ella and I finished book 2 of Harry Potter at which point I wasn't sure she would survive the disappointment of going from Hogwarts to a book about a rabbit.

But there are some things I've learned during my mom stint: sometimes rather than convincing and cajoling, you just have to start.  So I opened the book and began to read.  Like the young Fred Savage in the Princess Bride, she was reluctantly hooked.  A couple of pages in, I nonchalantly said, "Maybe you don't really like this.  Should we stop?" to which she gave a pleading, "NO! Keep reading!"

I won't ruin the book by saying too much about it but I will say that it is the most beautiful story about love: being loved and learning to love.  Magic wands and Firebolts are great but we could all do with more stories about love couldn't we?

why I'm not always a fun summer mom and why I don't apologize for it

When I picture school getting out for the summer, I imagine kids bursting through the school doors into the hot sunshine, throwing books, papers and pencils like confetti and running for the playground. 

 

My own work morphs from homework police, school paperwork organizer to beach packer and event planner.  (Regardless of the time of the year, "van driver" is still high on my job duties list.)

 

Summer is supposed to be the epitome of the carefree childhood with the only worries being if you are going to have a red Popsicle or a smooth fudgesicle on a 90 degree day and if you have more bug bites on your legs or your arms.

 

Let me first say that I am all for that.

 

However, over at our house, we are combining loosey goosey summer with some school work.  Yup, I'm that mom.

 

Third grade is apparently a more academically challenging year.  Kids need to have their addition and subtraction facts down and will be moving on the multiplication.  That is a lot of memorizing if you have to do it all at once.  There is something educators warn about: "the summer slide" and ways to combat it. 

 

Allow me to also say that we are not the parents wondering about the just how early you can apply for early admission to Harvard.  We are not academically pushy or demanding.  Our main goal is to raise children that feel good about themselves and their place in the world.  This looks different for different kids.  For Ella, it means having a sense of mastery, confidence and comfort which will be especially important next year as she actually transitions to a new school for third grade.

 

Here's what we have adopted at home.  Each Monday morning, these stickies appear on the wall:

 

The goal is to complete them by Friday. If that happens she gets a dollar. She takes the weekends off . Because third grade also has a big focus on independence, she is in charge of her time management around the stickies. She can do them all early in the week and take the rest of the week off or she can save them up and do them all at once at the end. She can do some each day and keep the workload even.

It is very interesting to watch her approach to these stickies.

This just over 4 hours of work each week.  I think that is a very fair price to pay out of the multitude of summer hours to start next year off well. 

We let her take a week off when we were traveling and she will take another full week off when we are all on vacation together.  So far she has earned that reward dollar each time.

In many ways it seems sad to do this to a kid.  But knowing my kid I am certain the reward will be much higher than a handful of dollars.  I also remind myself that doing this teacher real-life time management without the complication of tiring days spent in school as well as the core life skill of learning to work hard for something and reap the rewards.

This week, after spending the weekend at camp, we went swimming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Today we go back to Schoodic for the weekend.  She has managed to do all but two lone stickies she left for today.  It certainly isn't all work around here...

camp winniauguamauk 2013

July hit full steam ahead with a van packed to the brim heading in every which direction like spokes of a wheel from the center point of our house.  I haven't blogged for over two weeks because I have barely been home.  But what fun we have had.

The last week of July had us taking a trip just south of Boston for my Uncle's surprise birthday party.  It was really wonderful to see many of my family members I haven't seen in years, including my aunt and cousin from the west coast. 



Kathryn and Brian with Braeden and Michaela, Sandi the girls and Iwith my Aunt JoEllen
and her son Landon

 Our trip to Boston meant a very long day in the car for the kids (7+ hours round trip).  We stayed at Kathryn's house overnight, arriving back at 10 pm.  The next day it was off to summer camp at Camp Winniauguamauk for Ella, Maya, Michaela and I while Sandi had to begin her new clinical rotation up in Millinocket where she would be staying for most of the week while we were away.  It was a sad departure for all of us.  While it is true that there are so many more freedoms she has this summer than last, it was really sad to not have her stay at camp where we have always gone as a family. 

(I am going to work hard not to repeatedly comment on how it often feels unfair that we get to have so much fun while she is confined to a hospital OR.  There, I've said it and you can just infer it from all future summer posts that she is not in.)

Camp Winniauguamauk is a piece of sloping green tranquility on a pond in Brooksville, ME.  It is typical of summer camps with cabins, common areas, a waterfront, a dinning room and kitchen.  But what is not typical about it is the type of camp and community that we are lucky enough to be a part of when Sandi's sister, Trish, directs a Christian-based youth camp for 3rd-5th graders. 

If you don't have a good sense of who Trish is let me tell you that she is simply one of the most radiant people I know.  She exudes love, gentleness and compassion while also being full to overflowing with a carefree playfulness that is contagious. 

She is also ridiculously strong.

Not normally one for organized church activities, I adore this camp and everything about it.  It is a place young kids can come to learn about being good citizens of humanity, fair and inclusive, loving and connected.  This was the first year Ella was old enough to be a camper (with a family member such as myself on the grounds) and we convinced her cousin Michaela to come too.

While I was really bummed that Sandi could not stay with us, I was very blessed to spend the Sunday-Wednesday camp with the rest of her family.  In addition to Trish, Kristi was there with her two kids as well as Sandi's mom, Patti, and very close family friend, Auntie Di.  Also at camp for the first time was Noah (who is actually a cousin but who we think of more like a nephew) who was there with his dad, Uncle Buck, as his sighted aid.  (Remember them from last summer's equality parades?) There were also many other wonderful staff members- in fact,  I think there were more staff than campers.  That is some serious love and guidance spread among the campers.

My official title at camp this year was Camp Aunt (available for hugs, hair braiding, fingernail painting) and Inspector.  It was my daily duty to inspect and award points to cabins as they worked for special privileges.  I loved it in every way you might imagine. 

Maya, naturally, was my trusty assistant.  This meant she wandered around the camp with me, nosing in areas that were otherwise off limits.  She showed a strong tendency toward a career as Goldilocks as she wanted to try out everyone's bed. 

(For the record, this was Ella's bunk.)


Ella and Michaela weren't sure they wanted to sleep with their cabin or with me, but when we got there, they choose the cabin.  While this meant that they got very little shut eye over the three nights of camp, it made all the difference for them as far as being a part of the cabin group itself.   I was incredibly proud of these two.  They had the amazing Brittany as their camp counselor and she was the perfect combination of loving and fun.


Beds made, bags unpacked and ready to go meet the other campers.

On the first day of camp, Maya found these lady bugs outside our cabin. 

 Then she made a habitat for them in a Tupperware with perforated plastic wrap and some grass. She and her cousin, Makenna, made it their camp mission to care for these lady bugs.   They also made it my camp mission to want to pull my hair out as they kept misplacing the Tupperware habitat and imploring me to find it.

 There was a lot of work that went into feeding those lady bugs. 

 Kristi, also a Camp Aunt and Arts and Crafts leader, did this really cool project as the arts and crafts teacher: Sharpie tie dye.

All you need is a 100% cotton shirt, colorful sharpies and over 90% ispopropyl alcohol.  You dot the Sharpies on the shirt in concentric circles and make whatever patterns you want.  Then you take a dropper filled with the alcohol and carefully dot the color with the alcohol until it bleeds.  So cool!

 

 

Kristi did a second project that required the trusty camp support staff to cut several scanes of yarn into thousands of 8-10 inch lengths.  We literally spent  hours cutting yarn with some of us demonstraing our poor ballpark measuring skills.

 

Kristi, showing the kids how to mix the strands of yarn with glue and shape it over an inflated balloon. It was such a cool idea and her sample bowl was really cute.  However, the small bowls stablizing the balloons led them to roll, dumping gluey yarn globs in the process.  But some kids really got the hang of the basic basket making technique. 

 Unfortunately the weather outside was like being in your own personal rain cloud and the wet prevented the glue from drying. I tried to transport three rudimentary baskets atop balloons in my van and they were a sloppy mess by the time I got home.  Oh, well.  This could be a fun winter project. 


Uncle Buck is like a big kid in an adult body.  He and Maya speak the same language of silliness and they get along famously.

 

Possibly the highlight of camp, in addition to nightly campfire complete with super fun camp songs, is the water slide.  Simply a few giant tarps, some dish soap, a hose and a hill and you have the best slip 'n slide around.

 



Makenna decided she wanted to give it a try and I was flattered that she let me take her down a couple of times. She smiled big and after 4 or 5 trips, she was done.

 

Brevan, whose official camp title (he's one year shy of being old enough to be a camper)
was Water Slide Tester.

 

Can you imagine going down a water slide blind?  As usual, Noah makes it look easy.

 

 As I said, Uncle Buck is just a big kid. I love him for it.

 The great thing about the soap on the water slide is how clean you get.

You hardly need a shower when you're done.

Michaela and Ella both smiled so much I thought they might break their lips.  And while she did experience some homesickness, Michaela was often bubbling over with laughter.

 

 

Michaela was laughing hysterically at the Talent Show skit where one person hides behind another and the person in the back uses her hands to feed the person in the front.  

Camp is such a special, protected pocket of the world.  All three of the girls got to be so independent and self-sufficient.  Maya got to move around the grounds with freedom (Kristi and I tag teaming loose supervision over the two blondies) and Michaela and Ella were responsible to their counselor instead of their parents.  I could watch them blooming with this new-found freedom.

 

 

 

All packed up and waiting on the porch to say goodbye to everyone.  Maya needed something to do or someone to climb on.

 Good work girls!

a project for those in need of green

For anyone else that desperately pines for something green and growing, have I got a fun project for you.  If you've never made a grasshead you don't know what you are missing.  It is like a homemade chia pet but even better! 

 

This is the kind of fun that can be enjoyed by kids and grown ups alike.  All you need is some knee high nylons, dirt, grass seed, a few decorations (or not) and an imagination.

 

 

Step one: to make the "head" of the grasshead, put some grass seed in the toe part of the nylon and then fill it with dirt.  We used three scoops of dirt. Squish the dirt to pack it down and then tie a knot to complete.

 

The squishing is very important...

Step two:  invert the nylon so that the knot is on the bottom and the grass seed is on the top.  This way the grass will grow out the top as hair.   Shape into a head, spreading the grass seed out to grown evenly as hair. Place the excess strand of nylon into a cup (one that will fit your grasshead so it doesn't slide down into the cup).

Step three: decorate!

 

Ella made a ponytail out some of the pompoms in our art closet. I guess her grasshead has hair on the top and on the back.

Here is another one Ella made:

 I made these- one for me and one to give to my mom since she was coming to visit.  Just what ever grandmother wants, her very own grasshead.  "What is that?  A potato?" she asked, skeptically.

Maya made one for her and one for Beckett to give him on his second birthday.  Because every two year old also wants a potato look alike holding the promise of grass to come.

Step four: once the decorations are dry, gently wet the soil, especially where the grass seed is. Fill the bottom half of the cup with water.  The nylon will wick the water up to hydrate your grasshead.  For best results keep the top moist until the grass seed sprouts.    And when your grasshead grows enough "hair" you can give it a haircut!

I have no idea why Maya's grew so much more than Ella's and mine did but she was very excited that she "won" it the grasshead contest she fabricated in her mind.