Homeschool Meeting Delivers Big Relief! :)

So my friend and I went to a homeschool meeting Tuesday night. The Homeschool group here in town organized it. It wasn't a huge turn out (it was their first year doing it) but I did get to meet and talk to a few people. I didn't really learn anything new that I already hadn't read in a book or on the Internet (people have no idea how much stuff I read!!!) but it was very reassuring to actually listen to a PERSON talk and tell me these things instead of reading about it.

I think the best thing I got out of that meeting was a one-on-one conversation that I had with a homeschool Mom of six years with four children. She came over to introduce herself and asked me how old Brenna was. We started talking about Kindergarten and I found out that she had a degree in Early Childhood Education so I proceeded to pick her brain. :) I told her about my plan of not getting a curriculum for Kinder and I thought she was going to tell me that I was crazy. After going on about my reasoning (Jenny just recently informed me that it seems like I am always trying to explain myself and that I have to stop - need to work on that I guess) she told me that what I was going to do was perfect. She said that Kindergartners need FUN stuff to do and pretty much validated my thinking on the whole issue. So I feel much better about that now and a lot more confident in my decision about curriculum. I came home and told Brendon what she had said and I think it made him feel a lot better as well and we are on the same page with things now.
One thing I did learn that I did not know (ok, so I lied about not learning anything new *haha!*)was that you really can't determine a child's learning style until they are about seven or eight. I just recently bought a book on different learning styles (The Way They Learn - How to discover and teach to your child's strengths) and have been struggling to identify what type Brenna is - auditory, visual or kinesthetic. So now that I know it will be a couple years before I am able to really determine I can relax a little.

So Brenna and I have been trying to stay pretty busy this summer. I ended up not enrolling her in summer gymnastics because it was outrageously expensive and had all sorts of fees involved. So we will wait until September and she will start with her combo class again. I am trying to get her to start karate - she's been talking about it for months. A couple weeks ago I told her that I would call the teacher and see if she could go that day (she can go once and try it before I sign her up) but all of a sudden she decided that "karate is for big kids" and she didn't want to go. I know she is a little apprehensive about it. She has always been that way - very afraid to try new things, but once she does it she loves it. I am a lot like that too - I wish she were more like Brendon when it came to things like that. So maybe I can see if we can go and just watch a class and she might feel better about it. She likes to take baby steps. :)
My Mom was so sweet and signed Brenna up for the library summer program. I had no idea they were doing it. So now we are going three days a week to the library and they do crafts and have story time and puppet shows. They show a movie every Thursday and we get to take our blankets and pillows and camp out in the auditorium with snacks and watch a movie, so that is pretty fun. They said that parents don't have to stay and that you can just drop the kids off but I have not felt very comfortable with that and have been staying with Brenna. There are just so many kids there and not very many adults. There are quite a few parents who stay though so I don't feel too much like Mrs.-Over-Protective. :) She likes that I am there with her too.
Brenna will also be taking private swimming lessons this summer for two weeks with one of my Mom's friends so I am excited about that. Again, she is unsure of it and doesn't seem too excited but I told her that it is something that she HAS to do and that it is very important to learn how to swim, especially since Grandpa Kim has a boat and we go out on it quite a bit and spend lots of time by the water (she ALWAYS wears a life vest on the boat though!).

Well I have been on the computer long enough. Brenna and I are going to play a couple board games and maybe attempt to go outside and play, depending on how bad the mosquitoes still are. They have been horrible since we got all that rain a couple weeks ago.
Till fingers and keyboard meet again.....