Let The Chaos Begin

Today is the last day of school, which means that I will spend the entire day running around, attending bbqs, picnics and kickball games. I'll watch my kids say goodbye to their friends, some of which they will see next week, some next year, some never again. I'll become a pack mule at some point, carrying whatever they need to bring home, then more.

Someone will be happy the year is over, someone else will cry.

By tomorrow afternoon, someone will be bored.

This summer will be a little different than ever before. One of my kids is going to summer school. Four days a week, four hours a day, almost all summer.

Our "free" time won't be. We'll have to be up and going even earlier than during the regular school year.

This is complicating things. A lot.

I'm making lists of all the things we are planning to do this summer. Art projects, science projects, handwriting practice. Reading, creative writing and more.

They'll be painting things, blowing things up, using their imagination and learning new things without realizing they're learning. I'm tricky that way. I'll share the cool art and science projects on my Facebook page.

Here's some of what we'll be up to:

The 30 Day Photo Challenge
The kids have always participated and this year will be no exception. It begins June first and runs through the month. If you'd like to participate, this year will run a little different out of necessity. I started a Facebook group where the pictures need to be posted, and you need to join that to do it. I will compile them into albums and share them on my main Facebook page. At the end, the contest will run here on the blog. The prompts and rules can be found here.


The 12 Books in 12 Weeks Summer Reading Challenge
Starting next Monday, we are reading one book a week as a family. All books chosen have been made into movies, and we will be watching those at the end of the week. I chose the books I did because they are the books I read and loved as a kid, and because they don't seem to be read in school as often as they used to be. Most of them are classics, many are available free from online libraries or brick and mortar libraries, from discounted Kindle editions. I found several of the books in the dollar section of stores, others in used book stores. The list of books we'll be covering can be found here. I will host discussions of the books on my Facebook page throughout the weeks. I hope you'll join us!

The Summer School of Rock
I started teaching my kids about rock music a few years ago, and it's morphed into this crazy project. Last summer, I covered about 25 bands. I'm almost done with an A to Z music challenge. When I am done with that, the Summer School of Rock will be resurrected. There are so many artists and bands to cover, so little time. My kids have all developed a deep love and appreciation of different kinds of music as a result of this effort, and it has been a blast. Until Jack Black actually starts hijacking music classes, I'll keep doing this.

Summer. Bring it.