Summer School

Sometimes when people hear that we’ve started school in July, they think we are insane. Why would we make them work through the summer? What about vacation? What about a break for mom? What if I don’t want to be stuck inside teaching? Hang in with me while I explain a bit…

[pinit]We have been on a break since our end of year review by our oversight group. We used the final review as a way to mark the milestone of completing the year. The following days consisted of lots of sleeping in, many hours in the sprinkler, a bunch of Phineas and Ferb episodes, and plenty of free time.

After a short time of freedom… boredom sets in.

Please tell me I’m not the only parent who hears 57 thousand questions a day like, “Are we going anywhere today?” “Can we go to the park today (even though it is 103*)?” “Can so-and-so some over to play?” Can we go to so-and-so’s house?” “Can we have ice pops?” “apples?” “grapes?” “a snack?” (The snack questions begin approximately 34 minutes after the previous meal.) et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

I love planning surprises and fun for my children, but I refuse to always serve as their cruise director.

We have five children in our home, I can not possible direct every moment of their free time and please each of them. Our children have incredible imaginations and come up with some awesome play themes, but when they have too much free time they can irritate each other and things that are normally fun adventures start to look humdrum.

Not taking off for three months during the summer means we have lots of break times to spread throughout the year.

I am a BIG fan or break times! I learned quickly in our first year of homeschooling that we needed to break the school year into chunks that gave us achievable completion goals every couple of months. Plus if we save up our break time to spread through the year we get to take advantage of discounts and less-crowds at all the places that are jam-packed during regular school breaks!

Summer school is a chance to make it more about the fun that the standard routine.

While we are doing some of our regular subjects (math, phonics/reading) we use the summer to have a little more fun and try the experiments we don’t always have the time for during the height of the school year. Andrew included “make goo” on his Summer Bucket list, that was our ‘First Day of School’ activity last summer. It is something they always talk about. It was a way for them to do some learning away from their books. And it totally counts as school!

Starting our new school year in the middles of summer gives the children ample time to ‘re-adjust’ to a schedule and be slowly introduced to any curriculum changes.

We are continuing on with our main curriculum (Heart of Dakota) but since each child is in their own academic level I am using the summer to introduce them to a few things we’re adding in as whole-family learning. During the Preschoolers and Peace workshop at the 2:1 Conference Kendra Fletcher suggested having ‘Circle Time‘ as a family and it makes a lot of sense. I do not feel the need to formally teach Nate but he needs to be included in ways that don’t detract from the older learners and I like having all five of them together for some of the school day. I spent our break looking for ideas of what we’d use as family circle time. We’ve added We Choose Virtues as a way to start the day together. Other things we’ll work on as a family are nature study using the Outdoor Hour Challenge and art using Artistic Pursuits Grades K-3 Book 1 An Introduction to Visual Arts and Artistic Pursuits Book One: The Elements of Art And Composition.

 

This is the 4th in the Summer Bucket List series. Haw you visited the other participating blogs?

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