The sky's the limit when it comes to kids' summer plans. At least--their ideal versions of summer plans. At the end of the year, in between compliments and surveys, my students write about their plans for the summer. Many of them have grand notions of daily amusement park trips--of effectively living at Six Flags--of staying in the pool for hour after prune-y hour, or of turning the summer into one gigantic sleepover.On my summer I plan to stay at home or I might go to six flags or astro world. Which ever one I do I know I'll still have fun. I hope I'll be able to be with my friends the whole summer. I also hoping that I be able to catch a turtle on the highway or something. If I go to six flags I hope to ride every ride there.
So...turtle-catching, eh? I didn't realize that was a popular side-of-the-road activity these days. The kids' plans sound pretty great, but of course the limit is usually not the sky, but rather the extent of parents' money, time, and roller coaster toleration, or the extent of the turtles' willingness to let themselves be captured at exit nine. Another limiting factor in many kids' summer plans is summer school. A month of reporting to class in the summer curtails many of these dream plans. Andrea wrote one year:
My summer is summer school and summer school.
What summer plans have you been enjoying?
Have you caught any turtles (or anything else, for that matter) along the highway?
Or--what has been cramping your style this summer?
Gemini roller coaster image: Wikipedia
6 comments:
I always like when all the kids say they are going to Disneyland or Sea World, knowing full well that is ap ipe dream! Most of my students will end up going to Mexico or hanging out at home watching TV 24/7. The excitin glives of 6 year olds!
We try to stress some fun activities around town (library reading club! free public zoo! science center! community center!) because most of these kids aren't going on a family vacation (except the one who got to go visit family in Alaska- even I was jealous about that one!).
I love the quote about catching a turtle on the highway. That's hilarious!
As for my summer... summer school lasted 6 weeks, and definitely cramped my style. Now I'm working for another week and a half at a summer camp, and I'm asking myself why I signed up for all this!
After this, my summer will be full of appointments and fixes and wedding planning and cleaning and moving around rooms that I've been too busy to do during school. I hope I get some time to rest in there!
Catching turtles? Love it. We're just finishing up trip number two out of three. In between trips I've been doing a lot of ... nothing. It's been blissful!
It's so true about the vacation pipe dreams. I often hear tales after the fact, too, of what kids supposedly "did," but have a suspicion in some cases that they didn't actually go to California for the day...
LuckeyFrog--Activities around town sound great! I'll definitely keep that in mind for recommendations. What a chock full summer for you! Good luck with the wedding preparations!!
Sarah--I just got back today from a trip, and I'm looking forward to that same in-between-trips NOTHING! ;)
Highway-side frog catching?? Too funny....most of the frogs I see by the road side are FLAT, which I guess would make them easier to catch...and throw.
Time has been getting the best of me this summer, but I did enjoy my road trip last week with the kids, look forward to camping next month, and hope for a beach day or two.
I love the imaginary trips and things that kids at school come up with, too! I had one tell me that she was going to Napa and Hawaii over spring break, which is only a week. Yeah.
Found you from Old Tweener!
I had to chuckle a bit, (using the word chuckle makes me feel old - try to disregard), at this post because my kids are some of the lucky ones who get to go to an amusement park almost weekly. We live five minutes from Lagoon, which is roller coaster/giant swing/tilt-a-whirl heaven, and we have season passes.
And while we have enjoyed this bit of our summer, it's also proving to be detrimental because the kids now think that every day must be filled with the most awesome activities ever. They are very hard to please nowadays. :(
I've read a couple of your posts and am thoroughly entertained. Thank you!
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