The Lazy Days of Summer... When Do They Begin?

Photo courtesy freedigitalphotos.net

I have been away much too long! No, I did not drop off the face of the planet, but I WAS nearly swallowed up with all the stuff going on.

I've been dealing with a medical issue that resulted in my having to endure three biopsies and a few days of recuperation. That Tylenol with codeine packs a punch, my friends! But it also does its job well, and that's what I needed. Although the biopsy results were negative for cancer (big praise here!), they indicated a skin condition for which there is no cure and has to be "managed." Since there's a support group for everything nowadays, I promptly joined a Yahoo group and have been learning all I can.

My church's Vacation Bible School was last week, and Miss Priss and I both volunteered: she as a pre-K walker (shepherding a group of rising pre-K children to their activities, AKA "herding cats") and me in the kitchen. We prepared daily snacks for 300+ children, but the vast majority of our time was spent in making fabulous snacks for the volunteer room, e.g., pimiento cheese biscuit pinwheels; apple slices with caramel/cream/cheese/Heath bar dip; tapenade pita pizzas; bruschetta flatbreads; hummus and pita chips; Ho-Ho cake; strawberries with cream cheese/almond flavored dip; jalapeno corn dip; fruit trays; veggie trays; and more. Not everything made an appearance every day, but everything was fantastic. I needed a nap almost every afternoon, we were so busy!

Tuesday was our first home swim meet. Have I mentioned that I am co-chair of concessions again this year? I am. And the other co-chair was out of town last week. Fortunately, she'd bought most of the items we needed before she left. But I was busier than a one-armed paper hanger from 2:00 PM until almost 10:00 PM. And Himself, bless him, did almost all the grilling. One of the parent volunteers also made some wonderful jambalaya, which we sold by the bowl. He said he'd "wimped it down," but it was spicy enough for me!

Tiny Girl has been helping out with her trainer's pony camp as a junior assistant. She loves it, but we have to be at the barn by 8:15 AM. She doesn't go every day, but when she doesn't go to the barn, she goes to swim team practice.

On Friday, we drove to my parents' house in the country for a family reunion. It was a lot of fun. We celebrated my youngest sister's 40th birthday on Friday evening. Sunday evening we headed home, except for Miss Priss, who is enjoying some alone time with Grammie and Grandad.

Betwixt and between, there have been sleepovers, a couple of birthday parties, afternoons at the pool, and other fun activities. Tonight is another sleepover, tomorrow we have another home swim meet (fire up that grill, baby!), and on Wednesday Miss Priss comes home. Wednesday evening is a birthday party sleepover. Thursday we're going to an area theme park with some friends. Friday is my sister's birthday.

Oh, and I have a growing list of things to do before we leave for Maine. Like get an oil change for the van. And pack.

Betwixt and between those activities, I've been looking for some freelance work, making plans for next year, and attempting to reorganize and straighten the study. I'm staying up pretty well with my social media activity, but my blog feel by the wayside for a bit. Blogging takes more thought and energy than pinning things to Pinterest, after all.

So that's my life for the past few weeks! I'm looking forward to jumping back into fun link-ups, catching up with you all, and writing about sundry things.

How's your summer shaping up?

I'm linking up with Miscellany Mondays, Hip Homeschool Hop, and No Ordinary Blog Hop. Come join the fun!

A Poem

Daughter of Mine


“Let’s sit on the couch and talk,”
she says, taking my hand.
And I go.
Friends wiser than I
say it won’t be long
before this changes.
Soon her eyes will glide over me
when she surveys a room.
I’ll be superfluous,
too familiar to be interesting.
A static character in the narrative of her life.

It’s natural.
It’s normal.

It wouldn’t change a thing if I
decided to jump out of an airplane.
A minor blip on the screen.

I remember a reunion between the two of us.
Our first separation, a weekend apart.
When she heard my voice,
saw my face,
she crawled like lightning,
little hands slapping the floor,
to get to me.

It’s not forever.

Using VARK to Strengthen Educational Experiences in Your Homeschool

One of the best things about homeschooling is the opportunity to tailor educational experiences to a child's preferred learning style. A classroom teacher, no matter how hard he or she tries to create a multimodal environment, simply does not have the time to attend to each child individually. But I can.

I've read quite a few learning styles books over the years, but I found it difficult to zero in on my daughters' preferences. They've always enjoyed my reading aloud to them, so I chose a literary-based educational model. I added in other activities to mix things up. We rolled along.

I'm happy to report, however, that I recently discovered the VARK system, which offers both adult and young person's questionnaires. Now that my children are older, I thought it would be interesting to see their own responses to a learning-style assessment. I also wanted to discover my own preferences, just for kicks.

 The VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic) evaluation consists of 16 questions, each with four response choices, of which a responder may select any that match his/her perception. This particular component of the questionnaire is fantastic. I think I only checked one box on perhaps two of the questions; on all the others, I selected more than one response.

But VARK is more than just nifty, fun, and helpful in making the learning experience more meaningful for each of our children. VARK goes one step further: each modality has a helpsheet that suggests specific study skills and methods for that particular preference:

• Intake: ideas for absorbing information
• SWOT (Study without Tears): study skills and techniques
• Output: performance, e.g., tests, exams, assignments, presentations, etc.

For example, the Read/Write helpsheet suggests for SWOT that someone with that preference might want to rewrite his or her notes; read those notes silently over and over; rewrite ideas using other words; and rework charts, diagrams, and the like into written statements.

I found the FAQ section to be particularly helpful. Spend a few minutes browsing around there to get a feel for the philosophy behind the VARK system. To get a better understanding of the four modalities and the multimodal preference, read over the VARK Modalities page. None of these is too long or technical; in fact, I found them informative and fascinating.

You have the option to purchase for around $16.00 US a more detailed (typically seven- to eight-page) personal report of your score. I downloaded the two-page sample report and decided that the free academic helpsheets on the website were enough information for us at this point.

Our styles, you ask? I scored a strong Read/Write preference (13), with a fairly even mix among the other three modalities (around five/six). Miss Priss came out quite strong on the Aural side of things, whereas Tiny Girl is multimodal with visual leanings.

Pop over to the VARK site and take the quiz yourself. Have your older children take it, too. And then let me know your results. Were they what you expected, or was something out of the blue?


Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Snafus: Life Gets in the Way of My Plans. Again.

It's been almost a week since I last posted, which I hate. But, alas, it had to be. Last week, I had to deal with a medical issue that had me on painkillers, sleeping quite a bit, and moving slowly. I'm still recuperating, but am getting back up to speed, bit by bit. We are awaiting test results, so if you're moved to do so, a little prayer would be fabulous.

My well-thought-out plans for our summer work has fallen apart in the face of reality. Tiny Girl has swim team practice at 10:15 every (yes, every) morning until 11:00. We're also trying to fit in riding time before the hottest parts of the day. One day, we rode before swim; but she's a girl who needs her sleep, and I am loath to wake her. So we watch the weather reports to figure out good riding times each day.

The girls also want to play with their friends as much as possible. Since we leave at the end of June for two months, I hate to be a wet blanket about this. And they also want to go to the pool in the afternoons/early evenings. Again, they only have this month, and they love to swim. They stay at the pool for hours, without me, now that they have their own pool cards. It's a win-win situation for all.

Adding to this mix, Miss Priss has begun lessons at our nearby Mathnasium center. I plan to post about this later. The good news is that she likes it; the other good news is that she wants to go every day. The bad news is that this messes up my afore-mentioned, well-thought-out summer work schedule.

Then there's their summer independent reading. Last week, we took loads of books to our closest used bookstore to trade for credit. Each girl selected several books, which made my heart go pitter-pat. But now they want to read them, for Pete's sake, and aren't that interested in closing their books to read school books (however good those might be).

Therefore, the girls and I discussed a new schedule. Instead of trying to finish most things up by the end of June, we're going to do fewer readings per day and shoot for a later finish line. Flexibility is good.

And you? Has summer's fluidity and opportunities exercised a siren call over you and your children? How do you accommodate all this joy and stick to your original goals? I'd love to hear about it!