WHOOSH! And like that, we're out the other side of the late spring push. Recital costumes, for several weeks trollishly guarded in their garment bags in the front closet, are now in the dress-up box.
I've also pretty much locked down what the big kid's learning plan for the 2012-2013 year will be, and finally feel less worked up about it. I have a meeting with her consulting teacher this week, and then we're done and I can forget about it until September.
This summer she will continue to move along in math, and read independently, have read alouds and listen to audiobooks. We also have some family camping trips planned in national parks that offer Junior Ranger programs, and I hope to visit a few more close-by sites for a smackerel of very casual outdoor learning. Everything else will wait until fall.
I switched up her language arts plan to something much simpler. She's just entering first grade; simple is still the name of the game. We'll begin Language Lessons for the Very Young in the fall, but the bulk of her language arts hours will be devoted to independent reading. We'll also do some periodic responsive work (we'll have to come up with some projects, which shouldn't be too hard) but nothing complicated. A diorama or something similar every now and again should do it.
Right now she's reading the first book in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series. I'm not sure if she'll want to read any more of those (there are twelve of them!; also, that Scholastic site is the most helpful thing ever in terms of finding books your kid might like and feel comfortable reading). If so, great, but if not I've checked out a bunch of books that feature dragons.
Here's the list I've pulled together so far:
Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Colville
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede
I'm also throwing in The Neverending Story by Michael Ende because Falcor is a dragon and HELL YES.
We'll get through those and see where she's at interest-wise. It's really fun putting a list like this together. Just one unifying idea and a HUGE field of good-quality, appropriate chapter book choices.
Her "owls" list was much harder.
*Ironically, I never wanted to read most of these kinds of books as a kid, and still kind of feel my hackles go up when characters have names like Ayliannagwyyn Jaydahla Forsythiantaurine. "AT LEAST ONE MAIN CHARACTER IN THIS STORY IS GOING TO BE GINGER," I think. My sister is a book wizard and consumed (and I think maybe still consumes?**) novels about witty, sword-wielding maidens with auburn hair and the dragons they loved and/or slayed like they were going out of style, but I could never really hang with them. Either a book jams its fist into my soul or I'm closing it up***. True story: I couldn't sleep in a hotel one time and all there was to read was my mom's Kindle. She likes thrillers and that sort of thing, Stephen King and whatnot, and after trying two books I ended up reading the introduction to the Oxford English Dictionary. I take zero pride in that. It makes it difficult for me to find fiction that I enjoy, which sucks, and has had a much more serious impact on the books I'm willing to read to my kids than I care to admit. Not cool, but there it is.
**My sister also reads excellent books, often, she just has a general sort of need to gorge herself on the printed word.
***I will say unequivocally that good writing, soul-fist-jamming writing, is not confined to straight fiction. You know what Slaughterhouse-Five is? Science fiction. I am no genre-hater.