The beginning of the week was Ted’s favorite part, a sleepover at Grandma’s to wrap up the summer. Beforehand, we went to a nearby nature museum, which turned out not to be such a good idea … most of the display cases were taller than Maddy and so hard for both kids to view. But they had fun anyway. We picked up lunch and went back to Grandma’s house, and Ted got to stay the night. He had a blast, and is still talking about it.

We started back to school on August 6^th, at about the same time most of our local school systems started back. I know it’s not essential to have the same calendar, but it does make planning easier, and allows us to take advantage of things during PS holidays as well as other times.

We started off with a light week. First is our favorite tradition, decorating the binders we’ll store all our work in. Ted had already selected a red binder (it is SO HARD to find red binders with front sleeves, but I did find one with at least a red spine) and Maddy a purple one. They each took a sheet of paper and a pile of stickers and had a blast decorating. Ted got the added fun of decorating his science binder cover too.

We started off our math and phonics workbooks, and worked on a few of the practice lessons in the handwriting book. Maddy is just zipping through the ETC primers and having a blast.  For math and other fun, we got a big set of preschool workbooks (I Can Cut, I Can Paste, I Can Color, etc) from Sam’s and I pulled out every page relevant to any possible activity we might do this year… they’ve all been sorted into my planner. She’s doing some of those each week, and doing the math ones as interested. She also likes the Three Bear Family counters, and I draw out playmates on cardstock for her to play with and do number puzzles on.

Friday was the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics, so we made a big day of it. I printed out a Summer Olympics coloring book (I forget where I found it online) and stapled it together. We also made a story disk, FIAR-style, and placed it on Beijing on our world map, and another one on Greece.

We made a ‘torch’ out of a paper towel tube, and construction paper and crepe paper for the flame. Before the ceremony came on TV, we stationed ourselves throughout the house … back bedroom all the way to family room … and staged our own torch relay … the kids loved it. Our ‘torch’ stayed right above the TV for the entire two and a half weeks. Then we pulled out the sofa bed and all got cozy for the evening. Lysle had picked up Chinese food for dinner, and Ted and I spent the afternoon making Won Ton, so we had a great dinner to enjoy with the show.

Ted was allowed to stay up for the entire show, and then sleep out on the sofa bed, a treat he dearly loves. Thank goodness for the pause button on our DV-R hard drive! How did we ever enjoy TV before that? LOL. The show was absolutely amazing! The kids got to color in their coloring books whenever the show failed to hold their attention, which wasn’t too often… mostly during the parade of athletes. Maddy went to bed not too much later than her regular time, and was a good sport about it.

Saturday was another Lowe’s workshop, featuring a cute little locker kit. Sunday we got to attend the church potluck and watch the youth praise band … they’re not too bad!