B had two day camps this summer. It was the first time he had been away from home for such a period of time (2.5 hrs a day), not including family visits. Initially, I was so nervous. I had to call my husband from the parking lot on the first two days to get some encouragement to leave. I knew B would have fun, however. In the first camp, he seemed to be by himself most of the time, which brought back some horrible childhood flashbacks of being the odd one out in situations like this. In the second camp, however, he was very sociable to the point where I hoped he was behaving.
In the second camp, one of his two best friends was a little girl who appeared to have a crush on him; she would stare at him while he did stuff and knock his ball-cap repeatedly. Kids would call his name when we were in the parking lot and everything; it was a very interesting situation to see him in. Usually, he’s so reserved. I found it fascinating to see him exhibiting stereotypical guy behavior with the boys, as he’s not really a stereotypical boy boy. Boys do weird things like flick each other as a way of showing affection. When they’re older, they use verbal teasing to show affection; my dh and his work friends do this. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand boys, but there you go.
The camps were run by a local university’s science department. The topic of the first camp was “amphibians and reptiles”. The topic of the second camp was the Earth, with the implication that they would be focusing on geology and fossils. The second camp turned out to be very high level, with mentions of things like the water cycle and plants and such. B still enjoyed it, but I think he was a little disappointed that they didn’t focus more on the geology aspect of it. As he said, “They only mentioned *three* layers inside the Earth. They didn’t talk about the inner and outer core, just the core.” But he did really seem to have a blast due to the crafts, nature walks and social opportunities. I think the nature walks were the highlight for him in both camps. The location was a fabulous wooded public garden with tons of wildlife.
I would sign him up for the camps again. Next year, T will be old enough to do one too. I was very impressed with the camps and the people who directed them. It was a good experience for him. And now our garage is absolutely full of the things he brought home every day: Magnolia leaves, snake skin, rock collection, paper mache Earth, frog sculpture, painted volcano receptacle suitable for baking soda/vinegar eruptions, the well-known plastic bottle “cyclone experiment”, painted wooden decorations, etc.
When his camp was in session, we had to get up and frantically get ready to be there on time. I didn’t have to leave the house until 8:20, but, as funny as it sounds, it was a real crunch for us. I was, truthfully, relieved on non-camp weeks to just stay in my pjs. In a way, I felt like it was a tiny taste of school and I have concluded that school is still not for us. If he attended first grade this upcoming year, he would have to be outside our house at the bus stop at 6:50 am. The thought of getting him ready for that time makes my head want to explode. Also, I noticed that, as he’s an introvert, he tended to melt down at some point after camp was over; I could not deal with that aspect of school and I remember it very well from my own personal experience.
The camp experience has underlined the need for more homeschool socialization, however. This fall, we are definitely going to work harder at hooking up with our homeschool group. Last year, in K, it didn’t seem to be such a need for him. Also, in the beginning, I had a two year old who still wore diapers and napped! Homeschool outings were usually exceptionally challenging. It will be SO much more pleasant this year, now that my “baby” will turn 4 early in the year and he is much more compatible with group situations.
The rest of the summer so far has been filled with playing, getting the house ready to sell and some outings. We’ve done the typical outings of parks and museums. The kids mostly play all day. B’s interests still remain in construction, human anatomy, and the like. He still is uninterested in reading, even though he has shown that he actually can read a fair amount. Yesterday, he brought a science book over to me and said, “This says ‘oxygen’.” And dh sat with him as he choppily read the first page of a Thomas the Tank Engine book. But he is almost entirely uninterested in reading so I don’t push it. I try to avoid talking about it at all right now.
Both kids still love being read to and there is a big interest in audio books right now. Yesterday, they laid in the floor for two hours just listening to audio books! A favorite is the classic Winnie the Pooh series. We have a free CD from the Sunday Times, narrated by Bernard Cribbins. I need to buy a full CD of all the stories, but the narrator needs to be British…I think it would be equally strange to hear a British person narrating the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Some things just require a native speaker.
The kids have started to memorize some of the Pooh interchanges and they replay them with each other. A favorite is from the story in which Pooh goes visiting and gets stuck, “I said, is anybody at home?!...You needn’t shout so loud. I heard you quite well the first time.” They do that one to each other a lot, although they usually stumble over the words. At night, we’re reading the original Pooh stories. The language is so clever and funny that I laugh out loud too. We laughed for a long time over “the Brain of Pooh”.
This week, we went to short jazz concert for children. It’s part of the free children’s concert series held by our city’s orchestra. Both my kids have a higher than average exposure to and appreciation of jazz music, since I really love jazz. Still, B tends to get bored during these things. I don’t know why I had never thought of bringing coloring books, but it worked really well this time. Because public interest in the concerts is so high, we had to arrive really early to even get a seat at all. The coloring books were great for the wait.
The musicians played an electronic keyboard, the bass, the trombone and the drums. We were a bit disappointed that they did not play the trumpet or clarinet but it was still very well-done. When we came home, B took away the idea that jazz is American music, with drums from
