Summer: Week 2

This week isn't turning out at all as we had planned. We were supposed to be enjoying a full day of mother/daughter camp. But, Alexandra is still sick!

We finally went to see the doctor today after Alexandra got laryngitis last night. She's had a sore throat, ear aches, fever for 3 days, and now the laryngitis! Well, the doctor said it's a virus (thankfully, not strep throat!) and she's cleared to go to camp tomorrow. But, we're too far behind in one camp, so we'll just be going until about noon. We're looking forward to it, though! And, I'm really tired of being trapped in the house for 4 days! :-)

While she was feeling better yesterday, we cleaned off our big school book shelf and organized one of our school closets. We've got LOTS of stuff to get rid of now! I did have lots of science & history kits on the shelf that we'd never used. I told her she could pull down 4 of them. The first one she chose was a bag of InstaSnow where you can make your own snow. She made it herself yesterday, and then started playing with it. I do NOT recommend playing with this stuff inside. :-) It was messy, but she enjoyed it. (We haven't gotten to the other 3 kits yet, and she's currently taking a RARE nap. Yeah! She really needs it.)

I also thought we might try (again) to learn how to play chess this summer. We got out the chess board and book (Chess Basics by Schneider) and she is almost begging constantly to play chess! I guess we have a keeper! In the Chess Basics book, there are lots of games to help you learn the strategy. For example, we've played some pawn only games and now are ready for some knight & pawn games. We both enjoy the games, but she really enjoys playing a "real" game of chess.

The photo above is of some peanuts Alexandra is growing. One of the weekly classes she is taking this summer is about botany & gardening. For the first week, she learned about the parts of a plant, the parts of a flower, and about George Washington Carver. She planted a raw peanut in this pail and it is doing really well!

We also have been reading more Polacco books (which we first encountered because of Author Fiesta). We are both LOVING her books! She's amazing and I almost always have to cry during part of it. We read two books that are about Jews during WWII. They are beautiful, sweet, sad stories.

And, lastly, I found another good reason to sign up with Google Reader (or something like it). A friend recently had her blog deleted by the place where she hosts it. I was able to help her recover some of her posts because they had them saved at Google Reader back to January 2007! So, if you ever lost your blog, this would be a good way to recover some of it!

Hope you all are enjoying your summer. I'm off to read now (I have been reading SO MANY books the past few weeks!). I hope to post about some of the books soon, as many of them are about eduation.