Currently...Counting Down 'Til Summer

Only 4 more days of rustling folks awake early in the morning, trying to get lunches packed, cajoling folks to drink a glass of milk before running out the door, rushing people out of the door, and then breathing a deep sigh once they've all made it to the big yellow school bus and finishing my half-cold cup of coffee.  Then wait 6 hours to begin the afternoon routine.

Not to say things get drastically calmer in the summer. No, the routine just changes.  Rustle up a couple swimmers, remind everyone to get some math exercises and reading done, cajole folks away from their little teeny screens to enjoy the big yellow sun outside, cheer at summer league basketball games, eat ice cream and Rita's. Repeat the next day.

The "deadline" of the last day of school is finally looming over me and I figure I need to spend the next few days preparing for summer.  Maybe these are some of the things you need to get done, too.

Write Thank You notes to my children's teachers. I have to deal with four of them each day; I empathize with the teachers who spend their days with my 4 and 29 others. A note is the least I could do; especially since I haven't figured out yet if sending teachers a bottle of wine is appropriate.

Re-set-up my home office space. My computer crashed, my schedule has been crazy hectic, etc. etc. and my work-at-home-space is not as organized as it should be. I need to take a day and put everything back where it belongs, wrap up a couple projects, and prepare my retreat for when the kids are here all day long.  If you work at home, in a professional sense or as mom-in-chief, it's helpful to have a clear, designated workspace to stay organized. It might be a corner desk in the living room, a rolling file cart in the dining room, or a separate room altogether - find somewhere that works for you.

Get the pool passes.  What's summer without the pool passes?

Buy a stack of math workbooks and clear our library fines.  Math skills are the set that seems to slip in the summer, at least in my house. Right now, the girls can graph multi-variable equations, without a little math maintenance over the summer, they'll barely remember how to turn on their calculator. So for them, I like to have workbooks at the next level (the one they are going into) so they can get a look ahead. And now that my son is going into middle school, we'll start on a little bit of pre-Algebra over the summer. Especially since with this new Common Core, I'm not exactly sure what he knows.  For my youngest, we'll keep up with the Kumon workbooks and drill those basic facts - gotta know your times tables!  If you can't find any to purchase, ask your school teachers for handouts or website references.

Enjoy the last few days of an empty house and finishing my cold coffee in relative quiet.  We all love our kids, no doubt, but gotta admit, there is a balancing calmness to have a few hours of not refereeing, feeding, and chaffeuring.


What's on your last days of school to-do list?

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Square + Triangle = ?

"Ask your mother to look at your homework."

This is my husband's statement to my daughter as I walk in the door.  What?  Surely, my college-educated husband could help my kid with her homework. What was he up to?

My daughter hands me her homework.  "How do you do this problem?"

If 3 squares = 2 triangles.... yes, this is 2nd grade homework. 

Simple: If 3X = 2Y, X + Y = 10, and Z - Y = 6, solve for X, Y, and Z.  But oh, yeah, this was my 2nd grader and she hasn't learned algebra with multiple equations yet.

Aside from calling her teacher or classmates' parents and asking "what the?" I was a bit stumped. My husband had decided to defer to all my teaching and PTA experience to explain to my 8-year old how to solve for square, triangle, and circle without using algebraic equations. My middle-schoolers looked over my shoulder and the 4th grader asked "how's a square and a triangle supposed to equal 10?"

So this is "common core"? Wow. I'm all for curriculum that pushes kids to think and moves them a little bit past their comfort zone. Really, I am.  And something like this example is good for developing their problem solving skills. And as it turned out, makes for an intellectual family activity, as well.  My only complaint, if you will, is I need a workbook or textbook or hand-out of some sort that says "this is what we taught your kid today on how to do this thing" so that we can be consistent at home because I truly was about to teach her about solving for a variable, for which I'm sure I'd get a frowny face from the math teacher.

Our solution: we made a list of square + square + square and triangle + triangle, assuming square and triangle were less than 10 (this is 2nd grade, afterall).  With the equations that "matched", we added square + triangle to figure out which equaled 10 (the second equation) and then - here was the next hard part - had to figure out what minus triangle left you with 6, without, again, resorting to algebraic equations.

Yeah. So this is why moms drink after their kids go to bed.