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Summer schooling scheduling ideas


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We usually school year round, usually to catch up/remediate and take the pressure off the regular school year.  Can I get ideas of what schedules you keep during the summer, even if you school year round?  I decided to post in LC because I know a lot of our kids need year round support anyway.

 

We have about an 11 week summer (until public school starts, which I'll keep somewhat to their schedule).  How many total weeks do you take off?  How many days per week do you work?  I'm considering taking about 3 weeks off from everything for the summer (with an extra week probably in the early fall).  The weeks we work I'm planning on doing regular academics 3 days per week.  We will have to cover OT fine motor work, spelling, math lessons, math fluency, spelling, typing, handwriting, reading, and writing composition.  On a good day those academics will probably take about 4 hours (we have to take many breaks and go slowly).  I will have to do extracurriculars routinely, though, as we've neglected a lot of them over the year so far (art, music).

 

 

 

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My DD7's only learning issue is ADHD, so we're not doing much during the summer. But her weakness is in writing, both handwriting and composition, so I'm planning to set up some fun writing projects to cover both. We may also go through Reading Detectives for reading comprehension. We'll also do games to make sure she retains her math facts from this year, and I have some Tinman Press books and a Level 2 Building Thinking Skills workbook she's been enjoying, so we'll play around with those...No real schedule, but I'll try to do at least something 5 days a week, to keep up the habit. 

 

She'll also be in art camp (mornings only) for 5 weeks, and taking swimming lessons, so we'll have to work around that. I'm guessing we won't do much those days.

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We won't be taking any weeks off completely, not intentionally. They may happen that way with holidays, time off for workers, whatever, but in general we'll keep to our routine. We're also increasing our number of workers and hours. My workers are college students, so it's better to ramp up in the summer, when they have easier availability. Then in the fall they'll cut back and it will be more of me by myself.

 

With my dd, we just kinda kept the hours we wanted, sleeping in, doing our work in a tent, la dee dah. I usually shot for a part time, 1 1/2 hours a day maybe, nothing major, just fun and keeping it fresh and in the groove. With ds, we're really intentionally ramping it up. I'm buying more curriculum tonight in fact. It will vary with the day as to how many hours, and of course he's getting ABA so it's a mix of that plus academics. If he were easy to teach, I wouldn't have in workers. ;) Really, he's actually glorious to teach. He's astonishingly bright, very fun. He's just fatiguing and I can't always be as fresh as he deserves. The variety is good, and he enjoys is (for the most part, lol). 

 

Anyways, for us this summer, he'll have a worker (me or paid) and some kind of plan morning and afternoon, almost every day of the week. Like I said, we're really taking it up. We have the availability of the workers and he enjoys the intensity of the interaction. I have some really swift new workers now, people who can talk science with him, etc. Last summer we did a lot of camps and things, but this summer we're trying to focus on consistency and not be bopping about. He's maturing.

 

Is there something you like to do? If you keep to that 4 hour a day plan (which is really a lot, even with breaks), is he going to get to hit the pool or do a sport or something? I think there has to be some balance. I think that you can kind of wave some magic pixie dust on yourself and say ok, we can't do everything at once, this thing we decide to do less of or wait on, and the other things get more emphasis. And then you use that breathing room to say ok we're also taking up rock climbing or whatever, kwim? I think my ds would be pretty burnt out by fall if we kept a heavy intervention level all summer. You could decide something to wait on to get that total down. 

 

I like your idea of adding art and music! I've started reading my ds poetry and having my workers read him poetry. He really gets into it! I'm wanting to try opera with him. Worker 1 sorta flopped, so I'm going to do it myself and see if we can get a click. And dd was reminding me just to put music on! So you're definitely onto something there. You could chop chop that list in half (ruthlessly, yes), and do 2 hours of intensive and 2 hours of art, breaks, puzzles, games for working memory, that kind of thing. There's a lot of math in games. You're wanting math fluency, so maybe trade that out for games with math and lighten the overall effect? We were just playing SushiGo! and it has math. Ticket to Ride has math.

 

I'm just saying me, I'd probably lighten that up a bit, give yourself permission. It's ok to stagger things and not be frantic. If you're doing everything at a heavy level, sure it can be good, but it can also kind of sap up your energy that would have gone into something more spontaneous that might have gotten you to the same place, kwim? Like do some coding or start reading comics together or something, kwim?

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Edited by OhElizabeth
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We're doing some themed studies with ASK magazine issues and having fun that way. I got a magazine full of humor stuff, so we've been rabbit trailing it, learning to juggle, working through a book of pranks, etc. To me, that's social, pragmatics, reading, etc., but it's fun and engaging too. You might see if you can accomplish some of your serious goals in some of these more rabbit traily ways. It has taken me a bit to find my groove on that. 

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We're doing some themed studies with ASK magazine issues and having fun that way. I got a magazine full of humor stuff, so we've been rabbit trailing it, learning to juggle, working through a book of pranks, etc. To me, that's social, pragmatics, reading, etc., but it's fun and engaging too. You might see if you can accomplish some of your serious goals in some of these more rabbit traily ways. It has taken me a bit to find my groove on that.

I love this idea.

 

We will be going swimming most days and bike riding as DD is learning how and we need to work on her skills.

 

If nothing is scheduled, DS would spend all day long rewatching Netflix cartoons and playing minecraft or other games. It's bad enough on the weekends.

 

I think that I could easily cut the reading and math lessons in half. Instead of a 30-40 min lesson, just 15-20 min each subject. It will help us progress a little and not be as burdening. We're also still getting though zones of regulation and a character education curriculum. Idk... seems like a lot but the reality is that most weeks during the school year we have a lot of days off still.

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Socialthinking - Social Thinking and Me (Two-Book Set) You could see if something like this would meet what you're looking for in character education. Like maybe it's not, sure. But I'm just thinking anybody doing Zones might also benefit from Social Thinking instruction. ;) Like that's the whole point of character, that you're thinking about how others perceive you, how you are affecting others, how others are thinking about your actions, etc. That particular set is one I got to do with my ds this summer. It's marked ages 8-13, so your boys are on the young end for it. It shouldn't come across as young. 

 

Whatever, just a thought/observation. :)

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We finished up this week, except DD has another week of math.  Next week we'll be off except the math, and Barton for DS8.  The week after we'll be on vacation.  After that we'll start our summer schedule.  DS6 will do copywork 3x a week to try to get his letter formation more solid and automatic, and reading fluency practice 3-4x/week, and listen to audiobooks every day for 15-20 minutes to work on his vocabulary.  DS8 will do Barton lessons for 15-20 minutes 4x a week until he finishes Barton 4.  He'll also do cursive copywork 1-2x a week so he doesn't forget it, along with math facts practice 4x/week.  DD11 will do 15 minutes of typing 4x/week, a few minutes of math most days, and a page of Megawords for reading practice 3-4x/week.  Once I buy Barton 5 I'll go through that will her also. Hopefully everything but the reading lessons/practice can be done before breakfast since they've usually been up for a couple of hours by the time we eat breakfast.  The older 2 are also going to do Hearbuilder Auditory Memory this summer, and maybe Brainwave Safari also.

 

I'm planning on working on some routines that will carry over to next school year also, like new chores for everybody and instituting an afternoon quiet time.

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I'm still trying to work it all out, because I just desperately need a REAL summer break, but what I think is going to work best, given my oldest son's needs to keep going year round, and his thriving with a regular schedule, is to just keep our morning routine going as usual on the weekdays: breakfast, get dressed and ready, start school. I plan to do a math and language arts lesson or review with him each day, and my other two kiddos will do review type worksheets or games that they can accomplish without my help. I hope this lasts about 60 minutes max, and we can be in summer mode by 9:30am every day. I do have a list of read alouds and audiobooks I want us to do (which inevitably leads to geography study), and some hands on nature study/science, only because it's summer and it will be enjoyable to be outdoors, but I don't count that as school. We all WANT to do that stuff. :)

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When DS was grammar stage, he worked with the OG tutor 1 hr/day at 5 days per week the entire month of June. We stopped during July and school restarted the 2nd week of August. I cannot teach year around and must have a break.

Now that DS is older, I have a set amount of work for him to do every day. The same goes for my DD. If they knock everything out in the morning, my kids are free to do as they choose, which means hanging with friends, playing video games, and watching telly. I cannot stay on an every other day school schedule. I must work daily with deliberation or stuff won't happen, which is why we take a break too. Each summer, I require total school separation for some time, and that is difficult with weekly violin practice.

Edited by Heathermomster
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