Imaginative Play, Math, Camping, Going To Church
Some more of our family activities.
In an eighteen bedroom house, there is always room to play. There were times when I helped the kids set up bunk beds in our biggest living room, for a couple of weeks at a time. They were forts, hospitals, ships, treehouses, anything the children wanted to imagine. I probably had as much fun watching them, and joining in, as they did, playing!
I probably bought every math manipulative that could be obtained in the U.S. to help my children of such varied abilities learn math. Books, worksheets, hands-on, everything available. We counted the huge cardboard blocks to make all kinds of houses; we counted the zoo animals, farm animals, etc. that we put inside the "houses" we built. We counted money, houses we drove by, you name it. We had stacks of puzzles for every age. The children with normal intelligence flew on ahead. But everyone did their best.
We spent much time camping up and down the Pacific Northwest coast. With increasing sizes of trailers, and finally, a 66 passenger bus, with triple bunks and a tiny bathroom built into the back half, and the front half for living/eating, etc. When we could, we ate outside, of course!
And an extremely important part of our lives - going to church. We went in the late afternoon, because there weren't so many people (our church had 5,000 people in it, per service) and no one really noticed us, though we took up a whole pew. That was nice. We could go to church there, just like any other family, and not be a distraction in any way. Also, I loved that service, because there was so much singing, and praise. All my children knew the songs, and could really relate, singing with gusto. Afterward, we often stopped at the China Palace, and had Chinese food. Oh, yum. Hiring babysitters for my helpless children was a real problem at times, but we went every time we could.
We had three tables this size, in our dining room, for our family. Wheelchairs take up a lot of room at a table. We had two, eight foot yellow tables for homeschooling and art projects,etc., in another room. But these for meals, in general.
(c) 2004 Rosemary J. Gwaltney
