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How do you handle the summer?
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Hi ladies,
I had already determined that we would continue reading and math throughout the summer while taking this week totally off for a short break. But, I am already going out of my mind crazy! The kids are arguing alot and whining and I can understand why. I don’t know what to do with myself either! I have aquired almost all of our curriculum for next year but am still waiting to purchase a few things so I can’t even begin planning yet. I think if I had it all together we’d start the next school year next week. I probably feel this way because it is SO hot outside (GA), we don’t have access to a pool (although we are not swimmers anyway), and gas is so expensive we can’t really go anywhere (we live pretty far away from anything).
So, I am curious, do you school through the summer? If not, How do you keep busy?
Hi Heather,
We do school through the summer, except when my husband is on holidays – both for the reason that you mentioned, and because it puts less stress on our school year.
We generally change focus a little, though it varies year to year. This year we are continuing history, math, reading and nature study – we live in Canada and the winter is very long, cold and desolate so nature study is a lot more fun here through the other three seasons. We have a lot of birds nesting in our yard (swallows, wrens, goldfinches), or nearby (Great Horned owl and a red-tailed hawk) so we do observe closely these seasonal things.
We try to go a few times to a very small lake nearby in June and September (it’s practically deserted during those months), go on walks in the early mornings before it’s too hot, put the sprinkler on for the kids to run through, bring out some toys for the basement on really hot days, and focus on handicrafts which are lovely to do when it’s too hot to do much else.
We use down time in the summer for lots of board games (we live in FL so heat is an issue here, we do have a pol but you can only swim so much and the water is 90 degrees so more like a bath than a pool). We also pick a topic to read about, like dogs, and learn lots of stuff about dogs and try to teach our old dogs some new tricks etc.
I try to plan blocks of time, say from8-9 outside while i’s cooler, 9-10 we will bake or make something in the kitchen, 10-11 read, 11-12 chores, 12 lunch, read or board games after lunch, 2-3 quiet time, 3-4 turn the music on and dance or just enjoy listening, 4-5 chores and dinner prep, after dinner when it is cooling off again back outside……..bath, bed
Most important just have a plan…….
Not sure how old your kids are but mine like doing inside things like putting a sheet over the table and pretending its a boat, cave whatever. Or we go into the darkest room or closet and have flashlight wars………we have some wooden indoor bowlinf pins (etsy) and we use our hallway to bowl……books on tpe while coloring……..make tents in the family room………some things make a more to clean up, but then the clean up kills some time too!
Well, we don’t have boredom issues. We have constant neighbor kids and a neighborhood pool (pros and cons to all that!) But to keep the kids from wanting to be with the neighbors non-stop I made a list of what they need to acoomplish each day, and it’s mostly independent (not sure how old your kids are). They are required to daily do:
A devotion/30 min. of reading from a reading basket (school readers)/30 min. of physical activity/30 min. of something creative (piano, scrapbooking, painting, drawing, etc.) We’ve been bike reading together, but other than that I enjoy the peace when they go spend time by themselves reading or being creative! After they do all this they are allowed around 30 min. of video time. Blessings, Gina
We school through the summer in the hot afternoons. No sense wasting the time when we’re just going to be in the house then anyway…LOL.
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