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Summer
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What does summer looking like at your homeschool? Do you keep schooling through the summer? Do you take summer off? Do a lighter schedule? Lots of nature study? I’m trying to work out my plan for this summer and just wondered what other people are doing. I think ours is going to be a simple shortened schedule. something like read something, narrate something, work on writing (IEW or WWS depending on grade level), and do some math. Plus hopefully lots of nature walks ( we live on a beautiful network of bike paths in Denver) and swimming (we just moved into a townhouse with a community pool).
We take a shorter summer vacation-8 weeks. We are out from mid-May through mid July. The only thing that I plan to require from mine is reading something every day, their pick. We will do a week and half of swim lessons (last year for this). We meet our homeschool group at the pool a couple of days per week all summer. We also try to plan one fun thing each week or every other week, whatever works out. We’ve done movie days, field trips, indoor trampolines, indoor ice skating, bowling, play dates at our house, etc. Notice that these are all indoor things. Just nice to get a break from the heat occasionally. 😉
Oh, and the reading…..I just keep a bookshelf full of all different types of books from all subject areas (history, geography, nature, science, poetry, art, music, etc). I am also looking for some math stories to add to that soon. 😉 This is a great time to get in those books that you might not get to in the normal school year.
Christy
My kids are required to do some reading and math each day. Not much – 10 minutes or so, although with the reading they usually do a lot more than that.
This summer we are planning to do the Pond & Stream nature study, too.
AHH I wrote a long post and tried to summit and I have no idea where it went. 🙁 Oh well. Let’s just say we stay busy.
We school year round, taking off a week at the end of each term and whenever we feel the need for a break.
We started K this year and DD has formed the idea that if Dad is at work then we do school. She has taken it to the point that when he has to work on the weekend it is insisted that she has some school work.
This will be our first summer with schooling and I think we will treat it just the same as the rest of the year with a week off here or there for time to visit family. We are typically done in 2 hours with what we do school wise. I do think I will add some more outside time and nature study though.
Because of athletics and commitments it is easier to run school similar to PS schedule for us. In the summer we continue with math and the kids read to me aloud. We do a lot of outdoor time too!
We school early Aug to Early May. Because of few vacation dats this year our last day is May 1st (Earlier than PS in the area) May has the best weather so we are looking forward to being outside a lot and giving ourselves a bit of an academic break 🙂
We go down to about 1/2 time schooling, doing an hour or two in the mornings before other activities get going, or doing just 2 longer days in a week depending on what other things are going on. I still plan the same way that I do in other seasons, but I expect it to take about 2 weeks to get through a normal week’s worth of material.
We do get in lots of nature study in the form of camping and/or hiking. My kids will be the ones sitting on the dirt in the middle of the hiking trails, sketching in their notebooks. 😉 We keep a garden, which gives plenty of nature study opportunities as well.
We also go on more field trips, because more things are open, such as historical sites, the Japanese garden, and so on.) We live in a long, cold winter type of climate, so we spend as much time outdoors as possible when the weather is good.
I’ve had a difficult time getting school done in the summer. We usually have gymnastics, swim lessons, neighbors wanting to play with the kids, vacation, etc. However, we just moved and currently live in the country. We definitely won’t have kids knocking on the door.
Since we moved, we’ve been seriously behind on our schoolwork, so we’ll be doing full days all summer long. Generally, I at least like to keep up with math and read alouds.
Our boys have summer baseball but we do more nature walks and I have them read/ narrate and do piano lessons. This year my 5th and 6th grader have to get caught up on their Catechism but that is about it.
We take off June–and I mean off. We just relax, play in the water, go on walks, house stuff. They always want to read a book, because that’s just life; but we don’t require any “school” work. I think my daughter wants to keep working on Biology so she won’t have as much to finish when we start again, but I won’t require it. It’s very nice to just be off.
We do the reading program with the library (that takes care of extra reading), we continue math daily, we work on some odd things I don’t cover during the school year: pledge of the allegiance, print/cursive of ‘entire’ name (First, Middle, Last), address, cell phone numbers. We do way more bike rides, hiking trails (AKA nature walks) and this year our local bowling alley finally joined the Kids Bowl Free program so we are planning on doing that weekly if possible. Camping is always top and we are getting a new puppy this Memorial weekend so puppy training will be #1!!
This year we are also volunteering at the local nursing home to take residents outside for a walk around the building something when my grandma was there they just don’t have time to do with them. My 2 oldest are going on a Mission Trip which ends with a conference for teens back here home. The next 4 (13-8 yrs) will do a summer stretch with our church where they meet 4 times between June and August and do some type of service project and then some fun activity.
Basically we also try and get those things we don’t get done in the school year or are not available in the school year done and fit in. We are way more flexible which is hard for an organized queen like me!
I love hearing what others are doing. PS My oldest is trying to finish up his entire last 2 years in one so he’ll be pushing through his 11th grade and hopefully into 12th. He has great goals!
My oldest is 14, 8th grade, & I have 3 younger ones. We have always schooled year round taking off a week a month or so and extra at Christmas and then as needed. I’m shifting that this year. We will finish up in early June and take the rest of June and all of July and 1/2 of August off. I just need a break. A big one. That said, math continues because it’s math and needed and reading always happens, but otherwise I’m just going to require then spend part of their days productively (hobbies or handcrafts, etc.). DD14 is volunteering twice a week at a local hospital. The rest is swim, projects, rest. That’s it. I do find as the kids get older more vies for their attention in the summer – camp, beach, youth group, etc. and I find the kids all want a big break this year.
We planned to school year round, but I am realizing we need to focus more on habits and relationships, than academics. Summer reading with the library, kids musical at church, free art activities at a local gallery, and learning to swim will all be part of school. We are going to start 106 Days of Creation Studies. We’ll do that 2x a week and make it last 5 terms. I tweaked our history plan so it will be lighter for the rest of this year and next! Math is a must – we’ll make sure we play lots of math games.
I have the school plan made up, but I really want to enjoy the summer and build up our family. We have struggled through some challenges this year, and we need to get away from checklists and enjoy our time together! What doesn’t happen doesn’t happen.We “school” year round. When we first began one of our high priorities was to not “do” school but to have learning integrated as a full time part of our lives. In real life we learn all year long. In real life people work all year long. Long breaks around here = bored kids and loss of routine. Even a week at a time off and they’re a bit lost. I’ve figured out that a day or two here or there is just more advantageous to our learning and our lifestyle!
What we’ve been doing recently and it has worked well for all of us is we do 3 rotations of 5 days each month for academic type stuff. So if we did day two yesterday but have a sick day or snow day 🙂 today then tomorrow if we’re well we’ll do day three. This has allowed us to take a day when we need it or three if mom is canning tomato sauce and not miss a beat. It also solved the problem of frequently missing the same day of the week due to dad’s whacky work schedule. We were always missing Thursday’s subjects LOL This way it all evens out, we can be super flexible but still accomplish a ton!
The academic part or “table time” things that we do usually only take about 2 to 3 hours and it’s just part of their (our) lives. Still leaves us plenty of time for a family vacation, an afternoon of swimming, or snowman making!
After 14 years we’ve finally found a really good flexible fit for our farm and family!
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