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Homeschooling in the Summer
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I am a new homeschool mom and my kids are still very young (4 and 2) but I was wondering what you all do during the summer. Do you keep your homeschool routines going and soften the workload or do you just let the kids play all day?
My kids thrive on a routine and my 4yo and I do a small amount of schooltime each morning (very light and only if he’s having fun). Should we keep going with that during the summer months so that the habit does not evaporate?
I think that having a routine year round is so important!
I have tried just letting mty kids play during the summer but things went south fast!
I am planning to do a lot of educational games and crafts this summer and maybe extra field trips or something. We are also planning on doing review review of what we learned this past year.
For this summer, I am going to actually make lesson plans – will do this in the month of May. Summer will sort of be our term four – the FUN term!
My kids and I are actually very excited about this summer!
HTH! 🙂
I always want to go year round – but it never works out for me… lol. But I’d try to keep a basic routine, especially if your kids thrive on it. Summer can be a great time to do some different/fun topics!
I need a breather in the summer and so do the kids (mine are older), so we don’t do any formal school. But we use the time for house projects and training in areas I’d like to see improvement in. They are still expected to do chores, and if I’m wanting to teach them new chores, cooking skills, etc. this is the time I try to do it. We often end up traveling, getting together w/friends etc. and it’s pretty laid back:)
We are year round schoolers here too, but whatever works for your family is what you should do! I schedule a lighter schedule for the spring and fall, when the days are nice, and for the “dog days of summer” I have a normal schedule, because my kids all complain about the heat. So they’ll run out in the morning to play, around 10 they come in and we school until 4ish, and then spend the cooler part of the evening outside.
We do lots more ‘out of the house’ activities during the summer, because there is just more to do with the warm weather. Whenever we aren’t going somewhere, however, we do school as normal. It usually works out that we complete about half as much as usual. So I still plan the same way I would, but it takes about 2 weeks to get through one week of work. We don’t take school along if we go camping or to visit family, but will continue with our bedtime literature, which helps make the going to sleep routine consistent.
Joanne
I used to do a full schedule in the summer, but last summer ds realized the other children in the neighborhood were out for the summer, so we compromised and only did the read-aloud subjects. I told him we had to read 20 min for the summer library program. But that hurt his math skills.
I am starting a new job from home this fall (teaching online) and will need the summer to plan. Therefore, here’s what I’m considering for the summer:
Continue Bible and Scripture memory, poetry, literature selection for ds9 and fun books for dd5.
Math review (subtraction and multiplication)
Try to do copywork daily.
Haven’t decided about composer study and picture study, but they never take long anyway.
Lots of hands-on art projects. It gets very hot here in the afternoons and they need things to exhibit for the county fair in August anyway.
I may try to get dd5 in school mode (she’ll be six at the end of July) so she’ll have an idea about first grade, anyway. Play file folder games and other games for math, that type of thing.
I need the mental break so summer is pretty much a school-free zone for us except keeping fresh with math. I will probably work on reading with my youngest as well.
It really helps to see how you guys handle things. We live in Colorado and summers are amazing outside. I’m looking forward to hiking a LOT and eating picnics outside. I hesitated in planning anything for our summer yet because I think him and I are starting to get a little burnt out. I think we might just get some great books and read together during our “schooltime” each day. We do scripture and memory verses in the morning too so we’ll keep doing that as well.
We homeschool in the summer too. I keep working our plan and try to make room for extras like field trips, picnics, days at the park, swimming, etc. Our summers are not amazing Colorado summers. If we don’t get outside in the mornings here, it will be after 8:00 p.m. before we can go out some days because temps get well over 100 degrees for weeks in a row.
Your children are so young. Don’t do too much right now. Lots of books, free play, time outside, exploration, cooking with you in the kitchen, playing in the water, observation, etc. is what they need at that age–not book studies. It sounds like you’ve got a good thing going; don’t feel pressured to add to it just yet just because summer is almost here.
Just a caution from a momma who started too soon and regrets it. 🙂
Lindsey
We also have very hot summers, so we started schooling year round a few years back. I love the consistency, and the fact that it doesn’t make school feel like ‘something we do’, but rather learning is just a part of our everday life. And it helps a lot during the school year, too, because you have more flexibility in busy months, during illness, or for days that you would like to take a break.
In the summer, we follow our regular school routine – but since our homeschool co-op isn’t doing its weekly meetings during the summer, we will take our ‘flex day’ to do more outside activities. My kids also enjoy lots of summer sports so we try to focus on more excercise than we normally would. Usually there is at least one trip to sneak in there, too :).
We school year round. I plan 3 months of work for a 4 month time frame. We flex when we need to. I lead a CM co-op September through April every year, so that is one day a week we do something else with during summer. My kids also attend camps 1-2 weeks in the summer. Well, my oldest two attend.
We school year round, but take breaks when needed. We spend more time outside during the spring and fall – camping, hiking, extended vacations out of state, outside play, zoo, etc. During the summer it’s usually blistering hot (first TX and now NE) and nasty humid so we prefer to be inside! We literally live across the street from the pool so we go swimming every day and do all our normal school subjects. If friends invite them over, we let them go. We live in a neighborhood with only 1 other family with kids so we have to travel to play which means it doesn’t happen every day. So I guess you could say we do school during the summer, but enjoy ourselves as well. Actually, that’s what we do all year!
We will be continuing with math most summer mornings and our lit or history read alouds in the evening. We will also continue with our Bible reading and scripture memory — probably over lunch. They will of course do some reading over the summer. Other than that, we will take a break from school — I need the break and so do they. Routine always gets messed up by vacations, camping trips, etc, but on regular days that they have to come to the office with me we’ll get at lesst these things done before they head out to play.
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