summertime

today as i was hanging out some laundry - i just had that sense that fall was coming.... the air was crisp not humid like the middle of summer

helen and her friends (the 2 girls are sisters... grandchildren of our neighbors nearby) blowing bubbles in the backyard... i am amazed at how well they play together.... helen speaks english and the girls speak dutch... yet they LOVE to play together and manage to communicate pretty well without many words.

as the days get shorter here (by that i mean it's actually dark by 10pm and not completely light until almost midnight!) and the temperatures get a little cooler (the temperatures are now averaging about 65-70 now) - i feel like summer is really coming to an end! i had one of those moments where you can just "smell that fall is in the air". the air is crisp... no longer humid.... this sky is really blue and the clouds are puffy.

only 2 more weeks and the kids go back to school already... summer holiday goes by so much faster when the kids are only home for 6 weeks though. however, the kids also get a one week break in october, a one week break in february, two weeks off at christmas, and two weeks off in may - so overall the time away from school seems to be the same as in america.

the boys have been very busy with their "summer reading program". each week they have a goal to read a certain number of books and at the end of each week we have a "ceremony" where we check off the number of books they have read and talk about the prize that they have earned for that particular week. each week the number of books that they have to read increases. they record the title of each of the books that they have read in a little notebook... this not only gets them some reading practice with the books ... but writing practice too!

so far they have earned: a pair of soccer shorts, a t shirt from disney, and an ice cream cone @ the italian ice place in town.

the boys have also kept a "journal" of some of the places we have visited. about once or twice a week i have them write in this journal and then they draw a picture above their words. on the 1st pass - i do not help them with any spelling or words. then we sit down together and talk about their entry... on the 2nd pass we work on correcting the mis-spelled words. graham (as a suggestion from his teacher) then writes the words that he mis-spelled 4 times so he can learn the correct way to spell the words. jayden usually does a pretty good job trying to sound out the words as he writes them down too... i'm pretty impressed since he will only be starting kindergarten this fall.

i promise - this is the closest i will EVER get to homeschooling :)..... i do not have nearly enough patience! i have enjoyed working with the boys over the summer though.

we must not forget helen and jillian in all these activities too... usually helen is trying to draw her own picture next to the boys and sometimes jillian sits on my lap while the kids are working. helen has been working on her colors and numbers this summer..... now that she realizes that everything is NOT purple or pink - we have moved on to the letters of the alphabet.