Spawn’s Supermegatotally Thrilladelic Not Bummer Summer: Day 1: Community Block Party and Mini Golf

                 Greetings CSMD Readers! We have a special treat in store for you here on the Radvon Ranch this summer! In the spirit of the fun and carefree days of summer vacation and the theatrical release of the legendary 3^rd grade summer tale, “Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer”, we are sharing our 3^rd grade summer fun with all of you. We’re calling it “Spawn’s Supermegatotally Thrilladelic Not Bummer Summer”. You see what I did there? Yeah, clever, I know it. ;)

Each day, we’ll be sharing craft tutorials, outdoor activities, tips, inventions, fun and messy art projects, discounted, cheap, and/or free AND fun activities, Lego builds, backyard builds, fun book recommendations, and anything and everything else that catches our fancy. We’ve also created a Summer Checklist of ideas that interest us now, today. That list may change by the end of summer, so this isn’t like a do or die list, just a list of some high points we’d like to hit and a clue as to what may or may not be showing up on our blog this summer. (The Summer Checklist was formerly known as the “Bored List” in our house, but that seemed WAY too boring to be any actual fun, so it got a renovation for this summer.)

Today is Day 1: Community Block Party and Mini Golf - an awesome way to kick off “Spawn’s Supermegatotally Thrilladelic Not Bummer Summer”! (Judy Moody Inspiration) St. Luke’s Hospital opened a new satellite health center here in the Slate Belt. It’s a few small towns over, but it was just a hop, skip, and a jump away (about a 10 minute drive) and everything was supposed to be free by virtue of being provided by the health center for their open house. We got a notice in the mail. [Insert invite scan here.] All I had to do was RSVP by Memorial Day to get our name put on the list. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! I called the toll free number and signed us up, forgetting that Spawn was supposed to be in fencing class on Thursdays until the end of May! D’oh! Fortunately, the renovations on the gym at the Y were progressing much slower than anticipated and we got a call yesterday from the Y to notify us that class was being canceled and tacked onto the end of the session in the 4^th week of June. WOOT! Community Block Party on!

We arrived, shocked to see how many people had turned out from the 4 tiny towns surrounding the new health center. We snagged one of the last few parking spaces, grabbed some bottled water and prepared for the hike down to the health center entrance from the far, rear corner of the shopping center. Out of nowhere, a night in shining armor on a white golf cart appeared in front of us, offering to shuttle us to the front doors and registration. Nice! Notice how thrilled Spawn is with a free golf cart ride. =D

We looked around on the ride down the hill and it was not looking very promising. Lines everywhere, crabby, overheated people with the wind whipping plates and napkins out of hands, not enough trash cans, and not much to do under the party tent from the look of things. Uh-oh. Then we arrived at registration…well, the line for registration. 

::sigh::

Yeah, we arrived about a half hour into the festivities, so we figured we’d have a little wait, but this line looked MONSTROUS. Was all the fun going to be sucked out of our free summer fun family evening? 

Fortunately for us, the MONSTER line turned out to be 2 lines: one for registration and one for the open house tour. I was NOT spending so much as a single moment of my summer fun family evening in a line to tour a few medical offices and the x-ray room at the imaging center. :P Chumps! 

While we were in line, we passed a small table of refreshments and noticed the slices of cake were disappearing fast, so Spawn and I snagged the last two slices while we waited. Life is short! Eat dessert first! (Mine was at least two-thirds frosting and I hate frosting, but I was glad I got to try the cake. =D CS Dad didn’t even like the looks of it!)

We signed in at registration, got this nifty loot bag full of info about the new health center and the new hospital being built in Easton at Riverside (only one loot bag per family :P), and free vouchers for each of us for dinner (a slice of Sal’s Pizza and a drink), free vouchers for each of us for dessert (Italian ice from Rita’s), and free vouchers for each of us for mini golf (Perfect Putt). Seriously, there’s nearly $30 worth of freebies in this bag at this point in our night! =O 

Still eating our cake, we passed on getting in line to tour the health center and made our way over to the fire trucks outside to poke around and peek inside. The young firefighters manning the open truck weren’t the most engaging conversationalists, but they were polite and let Spawn crawl all over the truck, into every nook and cranny. =D 

                  

After that, we hit the party tent to see what was going on for the kids activities and grab some dinner. It was still pretty windy, so we decided to grab some slices and drinks and find a table so we could check out the other activities before tackling mini golf…last. (The vouchers were good for one day only!)

                 

Spawn had a little trouble finishing his slice because he was so excited.  The med-evac helicopter from St. Luke’s had landed as we were arriving and it was right in our line of sight as we ate. He knew it was the next stop, but it’s hard to remember that when you have A WHOLE SLICE OF PIZZA to finish. ;) He got an Orange Crush with his slice and…honestly, I thought, “What the hell. It’s a party. It’s only one soda and he only has soda maybe once or twice all year.” Ahem…gentle reader, learn from my mistakes. Do not let an ADHD child who rarely consumes sugar- and dye-laden carbonated drinks have an Orange Crush. EVER. Not for any reason. Let us never speak of it again.

It didn’t help speed things along overmuch having The Smile-ologist (clown) turn up tableside to do magic tricks, pass out stickers and clown noses, and generally distract Spawn from a dinner he was trying to rush through while he was already distracted by the promise of sitting in a helicopter after dinner. The clown noses are from Barnum & Bailey and say “Greatest Show on Earth” on the tip of them =D 

                

After dinner, we ran over to the grassy field by the health center to check out the helicopter. The photos really speak for themselves, but suffice it to say, Spawn LOVED every second of it. We tracked down the pilot and Spawn picked his brain clean with every question he could think of. We crawled all over the helicopter, asking questions and Spawn even crawled inside to take pictures where his decrepit old mom couldn’t reach. =D

                

That thing sticking out from the side of the blade is on every blade and it’s to help the helicopter discharge static electricity. Awesome, right? =D

When Spawn had had is fill of crawling all over the helicopter, we checked out the St. Luke’s mobile doctor’s office (an RV) and hit up the Rita’s booth for some Italian ices. We had a short wait while they made a refill run to the store and we got some of the first tastes of the new flavors – mango for Walt and lime for Spawn and I. I tasted some of Walt’s, but the mango was too sickeningly sweet for me. Spawn and I were delighted with our limes, though! AND we got to see the Icee Guy! He had coupons for me and a sticker for Spawn. Sweet!

                 

Next, we decided to go see what the line was like for balloon animals. The answer was: LONG. Long line. Meh. We’re not patient, happy queuers, so we decided it was as good a time as any to go tackle mini golf. We hoofed it back up to the car the old fashioned way (on our own two feet) and dropped off the bags and bottles of water to lighten the load.

                 

Now, if any other family used the phrase “it was as good a time as any to go tackle mini golf”, you wouldn’t bat an eyelash. But let me tell you, we’re literal people. Nobody plays mini golf the Radvon-family way: full contact, nearly anything goes (distractions, interference, goalie-style hole-blocking, cheating, etc. are all encouraged). If you remember to add “-ish” to the number when you yell out your stroke count after each hole, you get to deduct a stroke from that hole. If you lie and deduct on your own and someone calls you on it and you don’t use “-ish”, you get strokes added to your stroke count. =D The number of strokes added is at the discretion of the other players in your group. =D We’ve been THROWN OUT of mini golf courses for our rowdy game play before, so we have a proven track record of obnoxious mini golf game play. I’ve incurred BACK INJURIES playing Radvon-style mini golf. =D My husband is physically SCARRED from Radvon-style mini golf. We can only pray that he’ll walk right again someday.

 

This flower was growing with a bunch of other daisies in the weeds on the back of Perfect Putt's untidily-kept lot. It made up for all the carpenter ants all over the course. ;)

Note the note on the rock blocking the one hole says "Hole Broken". My ball rolled up and GOT STUCK RIGHT THERE when I aimed for one of the other holes! That's why I titled this photo "No Sh*t". :P

Final scores:

Spawn: 65 strokes
Me: 53 strokes
Walt: 48 strokes, the creep :P

We took our time and had a really relaxing time because we waited until nearly the last hour of the block party, assuming those folks with young kids would pack up and head home early. ;) It worked out great! Look how quiet and uncrowded the mini golf course was when we finished! The vouchers were provided through St. Luke's sponsorship for the evening, but would have cost us $14 on any other night! Attending this block party really paid off in the end for us. We got to go mini golfing (FREE! - we'll be checking that off the list now!), visit with some firefighters, meet a helicopter pilot, have some Italian ices (FREE!), have some pizza, chips and a drink (FREE!), had cake (FREE!), and the entire evening didn't cost us a single cent! I was tempted to get a milkshake at Perfect Putt's cafe, but I resisted the temptation. I'd had two desserts and half a Pepsi already and I was getting the shakes. =D

All in all, it works out to about $30 - 40 worth of freebies just because I didn't throw away our junk mail and actually read through it for once! It's a great tip and one I'll be keeping in mind the rest of the summer!

Happy summer vacation, CSMDers!!!

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

What Spawn is Reading This Week and Happy Towel Day!!! - 5/25/2011

Woo! Busy, busy week here! So busy I just can't bring myself to walk you all through it. It's like Grand Central Station in here today. Suffice it to say I'm beat!

Let's kick things off with some "On This Day" news. Today is Towel Day! Celebrating the life and work of Douglas Adams is the order of the day today! "He's got a towel! Run away!" If you're a Douglas Adams fan, you've already got your towel draped around your neck, ready for any emergency the universe throws at you. If you're not and you don't and you aren't, you need to read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" posthaste! Now! Get thee to a library!

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with." Douglas Adams 

In other CSMD news, Spawn finished reading "Treasure Island" several weeks ago and mowed through the follow-up we chose, "Around the World in 80 Days". There's some pretty mature subject matter in these, so if your child reads them, I'd suggest discussing each chapter or daily assignment as you go. Spawn surprised me one day with, "Mommy, what is opium?" Oh...well, then. O_o Maybe I should be rereading these before I give them to him! Whoops! =O

"Around the World in 80 Days" was a SMASH HIT with Spawn who loved the Jackie Chan movie of the same name and assumed the book would be identical. It's not, but he wasn't even a little disappointed! Woot! As Spawn reads these books, I ask him to keep some things in mind to help with his comprehension. Each day after he reads, I've been asking him to name the characters, settings, and problems in today's portion of the story. He'd been doing a great job, but as he's become a better reader and been able to read a greater number of pages each day, he's needed a more sophisticated way to keep track of the details. So we introduced note-taking to his independent reading assignments. Now he's making his own graphic organizers with headings for "characters", "settings", and "problems". Note-taking is one of those skills no one ever taught me and I struggled with constantly in highschool. Spawn now PREFERS taking notes as he reads to help him keep track of what he's reading. Note-taking is a total success as a comprehension strategy and it's AWESOME to have some success on that front for once! =D

He just began reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" yesterday - another favorite movie. He thought he might be disappointed in the story because now he knows that the book and the movie can be very different, but he seems to be enjoying the story so far, no complaints, lots of notes...so, I'm keeping my mouth shut and waiting to hear what he thinks of this one. ;)

Oh, Spawn answered some questions this week about "Treasure Island" and "Around the World in 80 Days" - just to give you an idea of what a 3rd grader is getting out of these books:

Assignment: "For today's assignment, we are going to post to a forum and make connections! Please respond to the prompt below in a post. Remember to check back and see what the other students in your class have to say about their book.

Think of all of the events that occurred in your book so far. Select one event that is similar to something that happened to you, a family member or a friend. If you are stuck, you can compare this event to an event in another story you read or a movie, play, TV show, etc.

In addition, I would like for you to write the title of your book in your post.

I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say!"

Spawn's answer: "I read “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson. There are a bunch of people, mostly pirates, who died in this story - just like my Popop {Xxxxx] who died a couple of years ago and my godmother’s rescued pitbull dog, [Xxxx] who died last year. Popop [Xxxxx] was like a pirate because he had a peg leg like a pirate. He had a surgery to remove part of his leg when he got sick and went into the hospital. Then he got a new leg and he sometimes pretended he was a pirate and he lost his leg in a bloody battle with other pirates at sea."

Assignment: "For today's assignment, I would like for you to answer the following questions in the text box below. Please use complete sentences. Spelling, grammar and punctuation count.

1) Write a summary of your book. If you only read a few chapters, that's ok! Just tell me what has happened so far. Please make sure your summary is at least 4 sentences long. (4 points)

2) Would you recommend this book to a friend? Explain why or why not. Please write at least 3 sentences to answer this question. (4 points)"

Spawn's Answer: "I just finished reading "Around the World in 80 Days" by Jules Verne. In this book, Phileas Fogg's friends at the Reform Club offered a bet that he couldn't circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. What he didn't know was that Detective Fix from Scotland Yard went out after him to arrest him because he thought Phileas Fogg was a bank robber he was looking for. Phileas Fogg and his new French servant, Jean Passepartout, set out from London and visited cities in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America, saved a princess, and returned to the Reform Club in London with only a few seconds left to win the bet and all the money!

I enjoyed reading "Around the World in 80 Days". I would recommend it to my friends. I liked this book because it is a great adventure story and I love adventures."

Ugh. Honestly, you'd think it would kill the rotten bugger to use more than the bare minimum of required sentences once in a while. >:(

That's the word so far this week. There may be more to come in the next few days as we get more details from a friend who may or may not be in labor with child number 2. Stay tuned for updates!

So long, and thanks for all the fish,

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

DNA of Questionable Origin

So Spawn just used the phrase "trying to avoid disastrous consequences" in conversation with me. Seriously? Whose gene pool did this little wunderkind actually emerge from? My husband and I are smart people, don't get me wrong! But...Spawn is not like any other 8 year old I've ever met. In one breath he's making fart jokes and in the next he's stringing together vocabulary words his peers won't learn or understand until 8th grade. He's even reading at a 7th-8th grade reading level! I'm proud and yet baffled. Amongst our siblings (my husband, myself and our brothers), I was the best and brightest student with a solid "B" average throughout my academic career and even I managed to fail 10th grade history (once ;) ). Where did this child come from? We've joked for years that he must be the UPS man's kid because he's blond-haired and blue-eyed and CS Dad and I are most definitely neither of those! Now we know. Spawn must hearken back to some ancient, brilliant ancestor...whom neither CS Dad nor I take after ourselves. :P

Actually, when I spoke to my dad on the phone Sunday, he reminded me that his mom (my grandmother, Gloria) graduated from high school 2 years early and was one of the youngest students ever admitted to her nursing school in Bethlehem at age 16. Huh. Maybe it skips 2 generations. I got the fuzzy end of THAT lollipop.

So, when did you realize your kids were outdistancing you in some way for the first time? ;)

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Here's hoping all you moms (and those standing in place of moms) are enjoying your day and spending it with the ones you love!

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom

What Spawn is Reading This Week - 5/6/2011

I know I don't usually post these on Fridays, but Spawn just wrapped up his first novel yesterday and I thought that was as good an excuse as any to celebrate. =D He finished The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and he LOVED IT!!! =D I am one happy mama today! Not just because he finished his first novel, but it's a classic, and he enjoyed it, understood it, and it's at a 7th - 8th grade reading level! Dude. I taught him that! My home/cyberschooled 8 year old is reading 5 grade levels ahead of his classmates! =D I'm going to buy myself a milkshake tonight in lieu of a pat on the back. =D After he completed his independent reading book, his language arts teacher asked him to complete the first three questions of a worksheet to determine comprehension. Since Spawn finished the book already, we opted to complete all 6 for this book and we'll do all 6 questions for the next book as well. (More on the next book later on.)

Spawn really enjoyed this book, so we zipped through the questions easily and without any grumbling on his part. It has been excellent typing practice for him as well. =D (I had to export this from Word to PowerPoint to save it as a JPEG, so you may have to click the picture below to zoom in and read Spawn's answers.)

When all was said and done, he was glad he'd chosen this book first. It gave him a taste for adventure and mystery reading and was just the right, masculine type of novel to keep a young boy's (excuse me) man's interest. He feels more adult for having read it, too, so it's building his self-confidence as well. It also inspired us to play some mystery games (Scooby Doo's Haunted House board game) and to watch a Sherlock Holmes-inspired movie (The Great Mouse Detective). 

Spawn has a new pen pal that he will be getting in touch with at the end of this month (we'll call his pen pal "A" for now on our blog). So in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, we're also putting together a little theme park mystery scavenger hunt for his pen pal, A, (who happens to live in the Orlando area and has an annual pass to Walt Disney World =D).

Spawn's next independent reading choice is "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. He just began reading it yesterday and he's already really involved in the story and characters. It has much shorter chapters and a LOT more of them, so I don't know how or if that will effect Spawn's reading. Also, it's one long story rather than three short stories in the life of a single character, so I'm curious to see how he handles the comprehension needed for a much longer story overall.

And can I just say what a fabulous deal these Great Illustrated Classics are? $3.00 a piece when I find them in the grocery store or craft store and this publication of "Treasure Island"  that I bought in the last year or two must be out of print already. Check out the going rate on B&N: $74.40 new. =O

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom