Disney 2009 – The Food

We’re back from another glorious Disney World vacation and it’s time to recap what worked and didn’t this go around.  Each trip we learn a bit more about how we can make things go well and I like to record it all while it’s fresh in my mind.

Food

Take Out is My Best Friend

We discovered a long time ago that eating in the parks just wasn’t going to work for us.  The food really isn’t all that great, it’s expensive and our autistic son just didn’t do well in the noisy, crowded restaurants.

Staying at the Ft. Wilderness cabins we’ve got a full kitchen—microwave, full oven/stove, dishwasher, full size fridge, pantry and table for 6.  But just because I could cook doesn’t mean I want to do that on vacation! 

For me, a major part of vacation is getting away from the cooking and cleaning and having the opportunity to try new foods.  Take out gives us that.

To make this work, I’ve found you really need to take the time to acquire the menus before or at the beginning of your trip.   We make a go around all the shopping centers in the area when we first arrive to pick up take out menus from any place that looks interesting. Yes, this takes a few minutes to do, but you’ll save a ton of time and energy later when tummies are rumbling and food is just a phone call away.  I keep the menus together in a book in our rental car so we can call and order the food on our way out of the parks.

Big chains are great because they usually have their act together and often offer options everyone in the family will go for.  Restaurants like Flippers Pizzaria, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chevy’s and Joe’s Crab Shack usually offer big takeout boxes packed neatly in a shopping bag.  They include all the condiments and even plastic utensils.  Even if you don’t have a kitchen in your hotel room, these would all work.

But I love getting to have things to eat that I don’t normally get at home.  In those shopping plazas you’ll also find little mom and pop shops offering everything from Mexican to Greek, from Cuban to Indian and everything in between.  Some of the best value and tastiest food we’ve found has been with these small family businesses.  It’s been a great way to introduce our kids to new tastes as well.

Grocery Shopping

I know, I know.  It’s vacation!  The last thing you want to do is go to a grocery store!  But trust me, a half an hour of time out of your weeks vacation can do wonders.  It’s worth it! 

We head to the grocery store from the airport.  Getting this trip out of the way helps me relax and sets us up for the whole week.  I find it very helpful to have a printed grocery list ready to go ahead of your trip.  That way you can be quick and efficient at the store.  Go ahead and get that Winn Dixie discount card if you know you’ll be making another trip to Disney in the future. 

Want to get your family excited about a trip to the grocery store?  Break all the rules!  At home cereal must be low in sugar but on vacation they delight in picking up cookies in a box or chocolate covered everything.  Everyone gets a say in choosing some frozen treats as well.  Yohoo is a big hit in my house and vacation is the only time they can have it morning, noon and night. 

While they’re all picking out cereals, frozen treats and sugary drinks I’m picking up basics for breakfasts, snacks and picky eaters.  A package of ready to bake cinnamon rolls works if you’ve got access to an oven and baking dish.   Individual packs of snacks work well to take to the park.  And simple meals like cheese sandwich or hotdog are great to have on hand to satisfy picky eaters who’ve decided they don’t like Cuban food.

Don’t forget to add some napkins, paper plates and plastic cups to your list.  Also consider getting small packages of condiments your family can’t do without.   Lastly, you’ll most likely want drinks to take to the parks to avoid breaking the bank.

While it may take a bit of time and effort, take out and a local grocery store can make eating on vacation a much more pleasant experience.  There’s really nothing more relaxing than enjoying good food in the quiet and comfort of your hotel room.

Disney 2009 – Packing

We’re back from another glorious Disney World vacation and it’s time to recap what worked and didn’t this go around.  Each trip we learn a bit more about how we can make things go well and I like to record it all while it’s fresh in my mind.

Packing

It had been 2 years since our last trip so when I went to print off the packing list I’ve been using for the last 7 or so… I discovered it needed a major overhaul.  No more babies, diapers, bottles, blankies…  What a relief! 

Clothing was pretty easy to do.  The best part about going to Florida from NY this time of year is that I can start to pack away the summer clothing ahead of time since the weather here is cooler.  I use the opportunity to make sure everyone has enough basics like socks and underwear as well—packing the new stuff away in it’s original packaging. 

Packing the clothing bundled in outfits makes it easy for even the youngest  kids to grab their own clothes to get dressed while ensuring that tops and bottoms will not clash.  The larger sized plastic baggies they sell these days are great for keeping everyone’s clothing separate and easy to find.  They also keep everything tidy and dry should inspectors or rain try to make their way into the depths of your luggage en route.

In years past, we had enough room in the cabin to put the kids clothing in the drawers available in our Ft. Wilderness cabin.  This year only the youngest child’s clothes fit.  So the labeled baggies became an important way of keeping everything neat and easy to find for the older kids who had to keep their clothing in the suitcase.

After many disasters with leaking liquids, especially the sunblock, I’ve found that baby wipe boxes and sturdy shoeboxes are the best place to hide away things that could suffer from getting squished.  They worked well for the fragile spraybottle fans and cart decorations too. 

Since we make a run to the grocery store upon arrival anyhow, I’ve found it works better to simply buy some of the toiletries rather than try to bring them.  While there we went through an entire ‘normal’ size bottle of shampoo and conditioner and a full 4 pack of bar soap. 

I’m a little weird about toothbrushes.  The thought of packing a used toothbrush just doesn’t sit well with me.  Nor do I like leaving them on the counter in the hotel.  Instead I pack new toothbrushes for everyone, either cheap ones I buy or freebies from the dentist, and we toss them instead of bringing them home.  This year I finally solved the problem of having toothbrushes laying around (and the unpleasant thought of having the maid touching them all up every time she cleans) by bring along a foam koozie I bought at the craft store for a buck.

Another thing I’ve added to the new packing list this year are the foam earplugs.  I bought these originally for my youngest who is a bit sensitive to the sound.  But when the girls complained about having to share a bedroom with snoring big brother, they turned out to be a best buy indeed.

The 5 large LL Bean rolling duffles were perfect this time around.  Enough room for everything without making the bags overstuffed or too heavy for the kids to roll. 

We got away with only 2 carry-ons this trip but they were a bit heavy.  Not sure that can be avoided as I refuse to pack any electronic equipment in the checked bags.  The trip to Florida we nested the kids activities bag inside another one.  The idea was to remove it to make room for the wheelchair arms and legs.  But on the way home we had so many souvenirs that I ended up leaving the arms and legs on and instead used the extra bag to carry those. 

 It all worked out pretty well.

Preparing for Disney 2009

We took a break from our usual annual trip to Disney World while my husband was completing his MBA.  It’s been 2 years since our last trip….

AND WE’RE SUFFERING TERRIBLE WITHDRAWAL!!!

Not a moment too soon, we’ve got a trip on the horizon.  Thank goodness!

We don’t take our Disney vacations lightly.  Each trip has it’s own theme.  In years past we’ve done Nemo, Lilo & Stitch, Fantasia and the Incredibles.  This trip we’re going with Toy Story. Much time and effort goes into the planning and preparation.  Here’s a list of what we’ve completed so far:

The Plan  -  This single piece of paper contains all the important information about where we’ll go, what we’ll do and eat.  It has the park hours, the restaurant reservations and information about the dates of special events. 

The Ultimate Disney Guide Book – ‘The Plan’ occupies the first page of this homemade collection of helpful information.  This book holds the park maps, the restaurant menus, special certificates, coupons and discount cards and codes.  It also holds all our reservation information and park tickets.

Van Decorations – Florida is a sea of white vehicles.  It’s our solemn belief that ‘normal’ is overrated.  So we set ourselves apart with homemade ’stickers’.   A roll of sheet magnet, a few self laminating sheets and a couple of cool Toy Story pictures and our plain white van becomes the Toy Story Van … complete with a slinky dog antenna topper.

Cart Decorations – The girls were given the option of doing a birthday cruise or getting a golf cart for the week to use around Ft. Wilderness.  They choose the cart and hubby has reserved a six person cart in our name.  We’ve got a bunch of little green army men interspersed with a few other Toy Story characters to hang around the top of the cart and a ‘claw’ holding a Toy Story alien to hang off the back.  Did I mention ‘normal’ is overrated?

T-Shirts – Everyone gets to help design their T-shirt for the trip with their favorite picture and quote from the movie.  The kids shirts include a list of all their Disney trips on the back.  For the 12 year old and 10 year olds this is trip number #9.   The five year old will be enjoying his 6th trip.   We wear our shirts on the same day.  Last trip we caught the eye of a few Disney folks and ended up with a coupon for free ice cream

There’s still quite a bit left to be done.  Not the least of which is catching up the laundry so that our all our clothing is all clean all at that same time  :O

Sign of Things to Come?

Yesterday was the first day of school for Adrian.  I had four kids up and dressed and ready to go by 8 am and was feeling pretty good about it.

Then Bee left her boxed chocolate milk sitting on the ottoman.

Adrian sat down to put his socks and shoes on and BOOM!

Yes, the box exploded and the poor guy sat there in a pool of chocolate milk looking at me with a stunned expression.

Please tell me this is not a sign of things to come this school year….

2009-2010 School Year Kick Off!

Our 2009-2010 school year officially started this week. 

Reviewing what’s worked and what hasn’t in years past, I’ve drawn up the plan, scheduled the topics and set the ground rules.  This year will count as Zee’s official kindergarten year so he’ll be following along and participating where he can as well.

So what’s on our agenda for the coming year? 

Language Arts: Most of what we cover in this area is all done through our social studies and science topics.  With each study the girls do some piece of writing, read from various fiction and non-fiction sources, learn new vocabulary and practice spelling and grammar in the process.  We’ve got Spectrum’s LA and Vocabulary workbooks to overview and practice for standardized tests as well.

Writing: Most of the major writing pieces will stem from our studies in social studies and science.  However, we’re giving The Write Stuff Adventure by Dean Rea a go as well.  This book’s lessons provide interesting writing prompts across a variety of writing styles.  It’s less about having a perfect piece of writing and more about exploring and experimenting with writing.  That should balance things nicely.

Spelling: We’re still using the spelling lists from Natural Speller by Kathryn Stout. In years past, we tried to do spelling tests on Friday.  It didn’t always work well.  For one, sometimes the girls were ready for the test earlier in the week.  Then there’s the fact that they work at different speeds so I’d have to repeat the words over and over.   This year I’m trying something new.  I’m recording the ‘tests’ ahead of time in an audio file.  The girls can take the test when ever they’re ready and pause it , working at their own speed.  They can move on to the next set of words once they get 100% right on the current set.  We’ll see how this goes.

Math:  We’ll continue on in the Math-U-See program. By my estimation, we’re ahead in math.  Last year was math intensive at the expense of the social studies and science.  This year I’m swinging it the other direction and I plan to spend most of our math time on review and computation skills.  We’ll cover some new algebra and geometry topics throughout the year.

Science and Health:  One of our most enjoyable activities each year is the Pick-Your-Own Science Project.  Every year we’ve spent the month of June on this and the kids just love it.  They love choosing a topic, researching it, writing out a report/presentation, designing experiments and visual aids and, most of all, they LOVE presenting it and telling everyone what they’ve learned.  They really do learn more when they’re given the freedom to explore something they find interesting.  And as a bonus, they not only learn all about their own topic, but also learn a lot from one another.  So this year I’ve decided we’ll do the Pick-Your-Own twice – in December and June.  Beyond that, we’ll also touch on oceanography, drug education, nutrition,  human reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases.

Social Studies:  This is by far the most fun, versatile subject there is.  It lends itself nicely to unit studies (where you touch on all the other subjects while studying a single topic) better than any other.  When asked what they wanted to learn about this year, the girls put social studies topics at the top of the list.  The topics for this year include Greece, the Middle Ages, an overview of US history, exploring Puerto Rico in greater depth and covering the global impact of AIDS.

Art: We’ll be using Daily Warm-Ups: Artby Walch Publishing to inspire some unique works of art while covering some of the basic concepts. 

Music: Thirty minutes of music practice has become a regular part of our school days.  Gee is taking piano lessons and Bee is still exploring her options.  Zee is young but he’s got a drum set for when the music mood strikes.

That’s all of what’s ‘officially’ on the plan.  But we’ve been at this for years now and we know that they learn far more in a year than just what’s on the official list

Choose Your Own Science Project 09

Our favorite part of the school year has arrived!  It’s time for the annual Choose Your Own Science Project!

The kids love it because:

1- They love science.

2- They get to pick something they want to learn more about.

3- They get to be creative in making visual aids, experiments and demonstrations to accompany their presentation.

4- They get to do an oral presentation.  This bunch of extroverts live for the chance to talk.

I love it because they love it.  It’s a great way to end our school year on a high note. This year Gee will be working on computers and  Bee will be covering snakes. 

Zee isn’t even technically in kindergarten yet but he doesn’t want to miss out on all the fun.  Last year, he did a speech of his own on plants just from what he’d learned from his sisters about the subject.  This year I’m kicking it up a notch and helping him develop his own presentation on his topic – polar bears.  He takes it seriously and wants to cover all the information in the books, take notes and know everything there is to know so he can shine on presentation day.

A Long Stretch of Winter

After 3 years of homeschooling, I can start to see patterns in how our homeschool goes throughout the year.  This is that long stretch of winter where I tend to settle into, shall we say, ’less inspired teaching’. 

There’s not much to write about because we’re not doing anything terribly interesting or fun.  The girls are doing math worksheets, some practice standardized testing (to prepare for the test they must take in a few months) and reading daily.

The girls have both learned to type about 30 WPM so we’ve swapped daily typing practice for daily music practice instead.  Gee has begun piano lessons and Bee is learning to play the guitar.  Both are excited about what they’re learning so the 30 minutes of practice time is something they look forward to.

That pretty much sums it up.  There are no cool projects, no interesting lessons, no inspired assignments…..  just the daily grind.  Keeping up …but not really moving forward.

In years past, this same thing happened this time of year.   I think it’s partly due to the weather in our climate.  This is when the novelty of snow has worn off and the constant cold starts to wear on you.  It begins to feel like you’re just killing time, counting down the days till spring arrives.

I’ve accepted that this is just how it is.   Next year I’ll be sure to consider this pattern when drawing up the homeschool plan.  Maybe we’ll try taking some time off during this period.

Spring will soon be here and with it will come new energy in our homeschool routines.  Until then, the girls will just do the daily grind so they can get outside and enjoy the snow while it lasts.

Changes

Last week was a busy one for us. 

Tuesday was the big day – the girls both started their 30 month orthodontic treatments.  They’re still getting used to having metal in their mouths a week later.

Thursday was the day of a routine eye exam.  It’s been 2 years since they’ve had an exam but they had no problems last time around so I expected the same this time as well.  Instead, we discovered that both girls need glasses full time.

Braces.  Glasses.  With two huge changes in the same week I decided we should simply complete the makeover…. I took them both to get their hair cut. 

They look great! 

Retreat to The Teacher’s Lounge!

It’s that kind of day.

It’s our first real day back at homeschool since before Christmas.  We started out with some review math worksheets.  Just about every answer on the page was wrong.  They couldn’t remember how to subtract or compare fractions.  They don’t remember how to divide fractions or solve for an unknown.  They added 8 and 7 and got 18.  They divided 15 by 3 and got 3.  How is this possible?

I suppose since our breaks are less ‘official’ I somehow expected we’d simply slide back into academic work without a hitch.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

I suspect they’re feeling the need for a bit more vacation…. and they’re not the only ones.

I gave the old “I can’t believe you guys don’t remember how to do these simple things!”  speech, packed up the math materials for the day and sent them off to read books on oceanography.   I’ve retreated to the teacher’s lounge to try to put everything in perspective. 

I’m frustrated with myself that my expectations were a bit unrealistic and disappointed that I let my frustration get the better of me.  I remember how it felt to slowly get those gears turning again after an extended break.   I should have been a bit more understanding. 

So where do I go from here?  I think we’ll spend our afternoon doing some art lessons and playing educational games.  I think I’ll make some fresh copies of the math worksheets for tomorrow – so we can do them together, reviewing how to do them all.  I think I’ll make a plan for the rest of the week that will ease them back into using all those brain cells at the same time. 

But right now, I’m going to go make them some hot chocolate and apologize for my part in this whole mess….

Where’d December Go?

Here we are.  Two days till Christmas and I’m trying to figure out…. Where did December go? 

Once again, the time for submitting my quarterly paperwork to the school has caught me by surprise.  No doubt, I would not be doing it if it wasn’t required.  But it always has an upside for me as I’m forced to pause and consider what has been accomplished.

The study on Germany wasn’t the most comprehensive or the most fun one we’ve done.  But I think the girls walked away with valuable knowledge about important aspects of WWII.  Weeks later they’re still sharing with anyone who will listen what they learned about Anne Frank and Hitler in their individual studies.  It’s given them both a solid place from which we can continue to explore the history as the opportunity arises.  It’s wet their appetite to learn more. 

The girls read several plays and books about how to put on a play.  Just in time for Christmas, they’re preparing their own play to put on for the family.  They’ve learned about how plays are written, about the roles of actors, directors and producers.  They’ve worked on their creative writing and cooperation skills.  And they’ve had a ball doing it.

They’ve discovered a couple of new book series which they’ve been zooming through.  They love them and they’re talking about them every chance they get.  I’m mainly a non-fiction reader myself so it’s a relief to see them enjoy their fiction without it being forced on them.

Zee is reading quite a few sight words, trying to read books to us and constantly asking, “What does that say?”  He knows all the letters and sounds and can sound out simple words. He loves to ‘do math’ and has already memorized some basic addition and subtraction facts.  He can count to 100 and beyond with ease.  He’s slowly practicing his writing skills and is producing simple drawings for us to enjoy.  Best of all, he loves – LOVES learning. About everything.  He’s learned all this over the course of what we do day in and day out…. no formal instruction. At all.  It’s really quite amazing.

In math, the girls are so far ahead of where we need to be in the Math-U-See curriculum that we’ve got time.  Ah, sweet time.  We’re slowly going over all the topics we’ve covered in the past, improving accuracy and keeping those skill sharp.  Occasionally we toss in something new, most often brought in by some real life situation where we need to solve a math problem.

Ok, ok.  You’re all sick of me bragging on about my kids.  I just can’t help it.  I’m proud of the work they’ve done, the effort they put into it and the progress they’ve made. The longer this homeschooling thing goes on, the better it gets.