Today is the second day of our school break.  Those silly kids don't realize that they don't have to learn right now!  What's with them?  You should have been here.

My middle son, Alec, decided he wanted to write a book about undersea ocean life, tide pools, under water terrain, stuff like that.  He used the "Magic School Bus" book about the ocean and made a little 10-page book, completely illustrated.  He spent all morning on it and proudly showed me and the rest of the family.  He wants to use it as reference for when we go to the tide pools tomorrow.  After that, he spent time on our computer encyclopedia, looking up sea life.  While this was going on, I pulled out a Scholastic Children's Dictionary for Carmen to look at.  Now that she is reading, I thought she might appreciate it more.  She sat in the kitchen, turning page after page.  At the same time, Chad, my oldest, was on his computer, where he's been entering an 8-page list of animals that he made a few years ago.  Now he wanted to enter it on the computer in alphabetical order.  Later on, Carmen and Alec each made simple dioramas of undersea life, displaying them on the piano. 

While all three kids were busy doing this, I was running back and forth doing laundry and dealing with a banking issue.  Each child was saying, "Look, Mom, look" or "Mom, look at this" or "Mom, can you come here and see this?"  I tried to keep up but finally said, "I only have one pair of eyes!"  Of course, I wasn't angry, just a little frazzled.  I didn't say one word about how cool I thought it was that they were all spending their morning learning without me having to tell them what to do.

Yesterday, Alec spent the day making undersea drawings of various marine life and under seascapes, taping them up on the hallway wall (and no, I don't mind artwork on my walls).  Carmen, not to be outdone, labeled her drawings of sea animals as "Exhibit A" and so forth.  Not sure where she got that!  Her drawings fill the wall behind the piano.  Both kids are really into undersea stuff this week, which is why we're going to the tide pools tomorrow.  It's called "Catch their interest while it's there!"

Now, this isn't how they spent their WHOLE day or anything, they went off and played later on.  But it is so nice to see them pursuing learning on their own, something THEY want to learn more about or create.  I really think they get so much more out of it when it's their idea.  And summer time is the best time for me to stand back and let them go.