First-grader Kristine Pollock says her ideal summer day would be to sit around and watch TV all day. But she doesn’t think her parents will be too excited about their daughter becoming a summer-long couch potato.
Instead, she says: “I’ll probably do a lot of walking with my mom.”
With summer approaching, vacation plans for neighborhood children and their families are about as varied as the number of families in our neighborhood.
For example, Pollock, a student at Hamilton Park, isn’t sure what she’s going to do with her summer.
“Well, my mom and dad are talking about sending me to Brownie camp,” she says.
“I might be taking swim lessons. I’m just going to learn more about how to swim. I know how to swim, but I don’t know how to do many tricks (such as flips off the diving board).”
Third-grader George Gavounas has a hunch his summer will be fun, despite what he describes as his sometimes annoying sisters.
“I’m probably going to flip out because I have four other sisters, and they’re going to bug me a lot,” he says.
“We might set traps for my sisters like I usually do,” says Gavounas, an Aikin Elementary student. “I’m going to climb a lot of trees and play with my two best friends, Dean and Donovan.
“I’m going to swim a whole bunch,” Gavounas says.
Sixth-grader James Jones is planning to sleep away much of his summer.
Besides snoozing, he’s looking forward to visiting South Padre Island with his mother to visit museums and play at the beach, he says.
An average summer day for Jones looks something like this: “I’ll get up around 9 a.m., eat breakfast, put on clothes, brush my teeth and go places, like the mall,” says Jones, who attends Hamilton Park,
Fourth-grader Nathan Springer has simple plans for his first day of summer.
“I’m going to go home and go crazy and tell everybody (that it’s summer), play 30 minutes on my computer, and then go upstairs and keep telling everybody that it’s summer,” says Springer, and Aikin Elementary student.
Then he’s going to play with his Star Wars models, watch TV and visit the “Olympic-size pool” he swims at during the summer.
“I try to hold my breath across the whole pool – it’s a pretty long pool,” he says.
Springer is looking forward to visiting his dad, who lives out in the country, doing “a lot of nature things” and “getting fresh air.”
Springer and Gavounas say the children in their school anxiously await the arrival of summer, but they don’t think the teachers do.
“The teachers don’t show their expression. They’re just regular teachers,” Gavounas says.
