Summer Vacation 2013 and the Invasion of Harry Potter

I have long abandoned the idea that this blog would be the perfect, continually updated source for parents who want to use thematic curriculum at home.  In some ways, it's a failed experiment that I just refuse to drop completely, because I haven't been really doing the research I set out to in the beginning, or at least I haven't analyzed my data from the first couple of themes.  In other ways, it's a realistic picture of what a parent can do when they are a stay at home parent of two children with a spouse who, due to a long commute, is gone for long hours every day.  The reality is that I don't get very much planning time (none if we are busy on the weekends) and our focus shifts depending on what's going on.  With my oldest in Kindergarten, and my little one spending some time in his co-op and in his 2 hours, twice a week preschool gymnastics class, I was able to find some time this spring to implement a theme here and there around our other activities (swim lessons, gymnastics, playdates, planning for our ridiculously over-done thematic birthday parties, school work, making dinner, making lunch, cleaning the house, taking care of the cats, etc.).

May was the last month of school and I think both RJ and I were burnt out from it.  I was burnt out from the constant drain of finding new ways to get him to do his (boring) homework and I think he was just done with the whole thing.  We were also spending inordinate amounts of time focusing on preparing for RJ's birthday party, which transformed our home into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Yes, my now 6 year old has been obsessed with Harry Potter for a good year since we picked up the first book to read to him.  Some of the themes, especially in the later books (we're two chapters from the end of Half Blood Prince) that we're getting to now, are quite advanced for a young elementary school kid, but he was so interested in the books when my husband and I were reading them last year, that we decided to try it anyway.  I don't think that either of us expected him to be the Potterhead that he has become; rather expecting that he would be bored by listening to the stories without any pictures and quit the series before finishing the first book, thus avoiding having to discuss the more difficult story lines concerning death and being a double agent.  But that was not the case.  Instead he looked forward to us reading more and more, and seemingly absorbed every last deal, thus making it so that we have had to deal with all those difficult themes, and he's just kept on going.  Even around his Kindergarten work and my themes, Harry Potter was always present in his pretend play.  It wasn't until we were planning his birthday that I temporarily dropped the music theme and let him just focus on Harry Potter, of course bringing L along with him (he might only be 3.5, and has never had the books read to him, but he still knows and loves all the characters and the basic story just from playing with RJ and watching RJ play the Lego Harry Potter game on our Wii).

So for the month of May and much of June, we handcrafted wands, I sewed Harry Potter wizard robes, we cut fabric scraps to make owls out of toilet paper roles, we research "spells" for pretend play usage, we even put together a few potions at his birthday party (which of course required planning), we cooked food and treats that were depicted by J.K. Rowling, the boys played with the Harry Potter legos, and RJ had limited time to master his problem solving and hand-eye coordination by playing the Lego Harry Potter game on the Wii.  His birthday party came and went, and now, a couple of weeks after, we are midway through Summer Vacation and finally ready for a refocus of our activities.  The last couple of weeks have been fairly unplanned and random (around our regular activities of course), which is nice to do from time to time, but with vacation time withering away, we want to make sure that we cover all the things that we want to, before the grind of the school year starts up again!

Our activities are going to include a mix of themes for a little while.  We are going to be getting some caterpillars in the mail in a couple of weeks, courtesy of a birthday gift, and so we will be spending a good deal of energy on taking care of the caterpillars/butterflies, and documenting their development and learning about them.  I also have some random activities that don't fit themes that I've wanted to fit in for a while, and we have a lot of summer fun to engage in, like swimming and play dates, and field trips to various places that we're doing before school takes over our lives again.

So, stay tuned...I generally don't go MIA from this blog for TOO long before coming back.