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Summer schedule
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I am wondering about a summer schedule- for those who take some time off- do you just allow the kids to have free time and enjoy their summer, or do you maintain a light schedule? I am so stuck on what to do- I was going to continue with a light schedule throughout the summer, but am feeling burdened about it, but guilty for taking time off. Does this make any sence at all?!?!
Christina,
We maintain a light schedule and that is because if we are not on some sort of schedule I find that I ‘spin my wheels’ all day long. I can spend all morning just in the kitchen moving people through and it’s no fun. Then we find that we’ve really wasted the summer and haven’t accomplished much in the way of projects or fun stuff.
Also, habit training is great in the summer because there is more time to concentrate on it (and be perfect by fall, right?!). I was thinking of having one day each week that is quite structured. That was recommended by an older mom and I’ll see her tomorrow; I was going to ask more about that. I’ll let you know what she says!
Blessings,
Cindy
During the summer I plan on having a light schedule to work on areas of weakness. Also, I will be more intentional in Nature Study and Nature Journaling. But we will still do math review drills (calculadder) and of course reading and narration.
HTH
Shelly
We school year round here since summer is just too hot to even enjoy being outside.
Keep praying Christina…the Lord will guide you in how He wants you to schedule your summer.
Thank you! I am still praying! I am feeling much more guided to have some sort of a scheudle going, and after talking to DH he feels the same way- it’s just how to arrange this. I have had a “week” as I am still trying to get the houehold on track with our new addition. I really feel the kids pushing me and trying to “get away” with things. Thank you for the wisdom and thoughts!
Ditto Shanna. We actually do a full schedule in the summer, and are only doing “half time” (half the work) right now. I don’t want to be outside much in the summer and winter, so we do the majority of our work then. 😉
For our halftime, we don’t do any fine arts (except nature study), copywork, Geography, or History. Just Bible, phonics, math via Flashmaster, and literature. And if we want to spend the day at the zoo, we only do Bible.
For our yearly schedule, we go 3 months on and 1 month off. So, we’ll take 1 “guilt-free” month off this summer. However, we still maintain our normal routine of chores, meals & such. Also, we just can’t stay away from good family readalouds. 😉
Cindy, I was wondering if you could fill us in on the advice you got about summer schedules from the older mom you know.
We are having a hard time coming up with a schedule where we’re not wasting a lot of time, yet one that is somewhat of a break from the tight schedule we keep during the other months. Our neighbor friends are in public school so you can imagine the requests I’m getting from our sweethearts!! 😀
Yes, MJ, I can. She said this, and I’m still processing so perhaps you can think with me (because you are so good at processing): You want to select those things that you want to be structured with. That can look many different ways. For instance, the child may pick up a math fact sheet three days a week or so. We may commit to keeping a biography going and so if it’s Saturday morning and we’ve not read it, then we make sure it happens. We can say, everyone read one verse, paragraph, etc, of scripture before bed every night and we’ll talk about it at breakfast. We may say we’ll have a very structured morning 1x, 2x, whatever, each week. That does not mean it’s the same day each week. These are just examples of the wide variety of ‘looks’ this structure can take on. She said that you do not want the math and reading to just die. That would be the child’s reading as well as family reading.
What I came away with is that I need to think with my husband about what are those things that we consider important enough to structure (i.e., make sure they happen). We’ve asked our older children for their goals as well. A few things we’ve already talked about are continued training in routinizing wherever possible, phonics, math facts, family devotions, reading aloud with a purpose, having a yardsale, living outside as much as possible, really utilizing our yard for recreation…
From there, we need to decide how our daily schedule will look. Will we do yardwork and housecleaning together or rotate so that there is a group doing both? For us, it’s a lot of ‘who’s going to do what around here?’ This may sound so detailed, but I need a plan or I will spin my wheels all summer and wonder what happened. That is our task this weekend, to plan our summer with all of these thoughts in mind.
Blessings,
Cindy
I too need some sort of routine to be efficient and to know we haven’t squandered our time. If we have too much free time, arguments break out and the boring bug bites…”I’m bored. What’s there to do?” Amazingly, most of the suggestions I offer aren’t acceptable! Also, mom ends up doing most/all of the chores in the summer if we don’t have some sort of routine.
So I was thinking about a schedule that revolves around meal times, similar to the “Time boxes around meals” chart in Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education. For example, 1)Chores and math drill after breakfast, 2)Read aloud before lunch, 3)Room time/independent reading after lunch, 4) Afternoon chores before dinner and 5)devotions/Bible time before bed. Then leaving the rest of the day for them to fill their time with masterly inactivity.
One of my main concerns is making this work with the neighbor children having the summer completely unscheduled. I guess that can be the natural reward of getting our work done–play time with neighbor friends. 😀
I really like the idea of “living outside as much as possible”!! Thankfully, the children agree with that too (except on really hot days). I also like the idea of getting the children involved by asking them what their goals are for the summer. That gets their will involved and in our home that’s 90% of the battle!! 😆 I just hope their goal isn’t to break the world’s record on number of video games played while simultaneously watching tv. 🙄 Note to self: set a time limit on electronics….
Thanks so much for passing on the info. It’s so helpful to bounce around ideas with others.
Have a blessed day,
mj
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