Winter Break

Since Simon's right arm has been broken for the past 3 weeks we've put a hold on school lessons. We're calling it a month long Winter Break. No math, no spelling, no handwriting. Aside from the broken arm thing it's been a pleasant reprieve for all of us.

The kids have still been doing a lot of things. At Simon's suggestion I made up several signs that said: "What shall we do today? Games? Activities? Music? Stories?"

Then, when they get bored we go to the sign and pick one. We went to Target and bought a bunch of games like Bingo, Operation, Let's Go Fishing and a Curious George dice tower game the kids like. Out of all of these the favorite is Bingo, for some reason. They really like spinning the hopper and watching the ball fall out.

Gwen's also been doing a ton of coloring and drawing. We've given her free access to the printer paper and she goes through about 20 pages a day of just drawing pictures. She's also taken up playing with the word processor. It turns out she really likes typing the words she's been learning how to spell. So far it's just "Mommy" "Daddy" "Simon" "Gwen" "Cat" and "Dog", but it's a start.

While he's waiting to get out of his cast Simon has been playing with a lot of Legos. Here's some pictures of the new set he bought with his allowance today. He no longer wants or needs my help putting legos together. Kind of a bummer for me, but I like watching him be so absorbed.



Not much else to report. Next Monday he gets his cast off and we'll start back with our formal lessons on Tuesday.