Whose signature says "Giving up on the lofty idea of summer school?"

[NanceXToo]

I just want you to know, whoever you are, that your signature totally made me laugh.

 

I told myself that we were going to spend the summer working on Story Of The World (picking up from where we left off last summer), doing Times Tales to hopefully strengthen her multiplication tables memorization, attempting to learn Spanish with an audio book and CD as she's expressed an interest in learning Spanish, and regularly reviewing geography as she knows all of the states and capitals, and I don't want her to forget them, as well as reading together each day.

 

Well, we finished school like the third week in May, and here it's about to be July, and so far this summer we've:

 

1. Made it through MOST, not all, of ONE measly chapter of SOTW

2. Reviewed geography one time.

 

Er. We do read together most days, not all. Sometimes the days just get away from me.

 

That's about as far as we've gotten with "summer school."

 

I've decided to give up on the lofty idea of summer school, too. Or at least not stress over it. We'll just play it by ear lol.

 

(With that said, we did take a vacation to a dude ranch, will be going camping, will be doing a farm stay weekend in Lancaster County, are hosting a Fresh Air Fund child, continue to go on field trips and outings with our homeschool group, and have art camp and swimming lessons coming up in the near future, so it's not like I'm totally slacking in the educational opportunities department, they just aren't shaping up EXACTLY as I'd originally planned haha).

[Peela]

We never did "summer school" except for reading aloud in the evenings.

Its a lovely idea that my kids would have hated me for. Badly.

Our holiday time is sacred time to them- not to be filled with school things. Except for reading- I can get them to read. So thats enough.

There is something about just letting it all go for a few weeks. *I* need that sort of break as well, to catch up on my own interests such as doing tax (ha ha- well, I will be next week when our winter holidays start), cleaning the house and also getting into my garden, and my creativity (painting, writing etc). Also, dh and I spend more time together when its holidays.

[lisamarie]

Yup, I gave up on it as well for the most part. I was going to school through the summer and then I actually wrote on my calendar all that we had going on this summer and realized that it just wasn't going to happen in any formal way. I was thinking I had to school over the summer because we didn't finish all of HOD-LHFHG.

 

Yesterday I decided that since my DD already finished up MFW-K back in April and made it through 7 weeks of MP-K before our break, that she was fine to be done. And DS made it through SM1a & b and got through lesson 8 of SM2a, and he finished up The Reading Lesson, so it's okay that we only made it through week 26 of HOD-LHFHG. I don't have to finish up the book before launching into our new stuff in the fall. As long as their reading and math are finished, that's good enough.;)

 

I am having the kids do SOME stuff during our break just to keep them from bouncing off the walls. DS reads at least a half hour every day, and DD reads to me 3-4 times a week. I've also done a lot of unschool learning around the trips we've taken. Before we saw the Statue of Liberty, I had the kids watch a documentary about it and I read them 3 books on it. Before they saw the ocean for the first time, we read lots of books about the ocean and ocean life. Our next trip will take us to some sand dunes on Lake Michigan so we'll learn about sand dunes before going.

 

And this week I cracked out their art program just to give them something to do that's structured.