The official start to summer is only two days away at our house.  My older daughter, J,  is about to finish 5th grade and my younger one , K, will start kindergarten in the fall.  My goal this summer:  to prevent brain drain.

I admit, I made a half hearted attempt at this last summer.  We did some math problems here and there, and J learned to use a sewing machine and sew a shirt.  We made trips to the library and even had a mother/daughter book that we read and discussed.  I plan to continue with these ideas, and hopefully add even more this time.

J attends public school.  Her experience has been overwhelmingly positive, but I can't help feeling that she's missing something sometimes.  There is so much focus on having kids pass the PSSA tests that I feel a lot of the freedom to explore subjects and topics is missing now.  Please teachers, I'm not blaming you--I know you have so many more issues to deal with now than you did when I was a kid.  (My husband is a public school teacher, by the way).  This is my other motivation for preventing summer brain drain:  to get to learn about what WE want to. 

Please understand, I'm not thinking about grinding away at math worksheets every morning at the kitchen table.  But even J recognized that she forgot a lot of math last summer and wants to make sure it doesn't happen again.  It actually frustrated her!  We also plan to go to a local amusement park, go swimming, visit family, and just play together.  I don't want all of their learning to come from books, so we'll make sure we have plenty of things that are just for fun.  I'm going to share our activities with you, what we've learned, and hopefully get some great suggestions from local moms as well!  Like everyone else these days, we are on a tight budget, so I hope to include many low cost and/or free ideas here. 

Before we get started, let me introduce my family to you:

Mom:  I'm an adjuct college professor, performing musician, and sometime writer.  I'm originally from central Pennsylvania.  I am a ravenous reader, like to knit, and do home improvement projects.  My summer hope is to improve as a writer which is another reason why I wanted to blog about our experiences.

Dad:  S teaches music at a public high school in Lancaster County.  He adores his girls!  He recently also lost over 70 pounds, loves to work in the yard, and has completed a marathon.  He also builds model railroad buildings for fun. 

J:  will finish 5th grade by the end of this week.  She is 11 years old.  She takes ballet and jazz dance classes, plays intramural basketball, and is learning the clarinet.  She loves making stuff--crafts, designing outfits, creating stuff out of cardboard boxes, you name it.  She currently wants to be a rock star when she grows up (don't get me started).

K:  will start kindergarten this fall.  She will be 5 next week, which is so hard for me to believe!  She loves to play outside, draw pictures, do crafts, puzzles, anything involving Barbies or Polly Pockets.  She adores cats but is not comfortable around dogs.  She is generally like sunshine on a cloudy day, but has her "thunderstorm" moments, too. 

We're glad to meet all of you and look forward to sharing our summer with you!