if you do lessons year round, what do you do to make summer fun?

[Alicia64]

I think I'm becoming a drudge. My boys are 7 and I'm getting weird about keeping to our lessons.

 

We had some disruptions in our lives this year so it is important to me that we "stay the course" but I also want them to grow up feeling a sense of excitement when summer arrives.

 

We swim regularly, they're in special camps this year for gymnastics and others, so it's not like we're at the kitchen table all day, every day.

 

I'd love to hear what you do special in the summer even as you keep to your lesson plan.

 

THANK YOU!!!!

 

Alley

[simka2]

My lesson plan changes a bit, but we do school year round! In the summer we swim a lot! We increase our time doing nature study, geography, cooking/baking, and art. Since we camp a lot....I give them a map and directions to the campground and they have to be my navigator.

 

In the morning we still do math, spelling, and reading...the rest of the day is devoted to nature study (science) and electives. Hiking and geochaching is great too!

[KJsMom]

We took off 4 weeks so they still get "summer" but it is back to business now.

[snickelfritz]

We are trucking forward in math, writing, reading, and violin. But that's it. That means about an hour of school stuff.

 

Then, we are trying to swim a few times a week, get together with friends who go to school, bowl through the free bowling program, use our passes to the water park, attend some special summer fun days our church is doing, and go on vacation in July. :). So it is possible to do school and not have it be the same old stuff.

[Dmmetler]

We're schooling year-round, but I let DD pick what she wants to focus on. So far, that's been fairy tales from around the world (with some geography thrown in), insects, ocean life, and now Independence day. That replaces our Spine for the summer, and seems to make the difference. We leave everything else the same. It comes to about 2 hours M-W-F and about 30 min T-TH (DD is going to a rec center program and has dance classes on Tues/Thurs, so she's got several hours of activities outside of the house those days).

 

We'll go back to a 5x week schedule and start the Sonlight Core in the Fall.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Dmmetler2

[rafiki]

.

[melmichigan]

Our summer officially begins tomorrow!

 

So things wind down to 1 lesson in CLE for math and LA a day and reading, since read-alouds and individual reading are a daily thing here all year round. That means lots of time for fun science experiments, we have a whole list lined up. It also means mine oldest three are in day camp for the month of July so they are out and about four days a week and I have more individual time with my boys.

 

We are stocked on play dough, bubbles, crafts and looking forward to lots of just veggin time. :D

[Jen in PA]

We school year-round but take a month off for a bit of a summer break/lesson planning. For my kids, just having the neighborhood kids around to play with during the day is a big thrill. We swim, play under the sprinkler, and spend lots of time doing summer reading program activities through the library and arts activities through the parks. We start back up with lessons on Monday, and I keep things really light in the summer. We'll be spending about an hour a day on math/Latin/grammar and another hour on fun history and geography projects. I don't do any formal science in the summer since we spend so much time outside that it ends up happening without any planning. DD is an avid reader, and she loves being able to stay up late with a book and then sleeping in the next morning, which I don't allow as much the rest of the year. We will have 8 weeks of lighter school, and then take off the week that PS resumes to just have a last hurrah of summer fun and visit all of the museums, science center, etc. that are so crowded when school is out.

[Ellie]

Because we hsed year-round, I didn't find it necessary to make summer more fun than any other time of the year. One of my goals was for my children to learn all the time, through every activity, not to have a "school year" and a "summer," because real life isn't that way. :-)

[brehon]

We school year round (although we're off on a maternity break right now as mom schools herself on having 5 kids, running the house, and lessons :D) and don't necessarily make summer "more fun" than any other time of the year. The older kids continue with their TKD and we look for free/cheap/cool (describing temperature) things to do.

 

Because of where we live (temperature and/or heat indices routinely over 100 degrees - though not now, thank you, Alex) we do transition lessons from morning to afternoon. In the mornings the kids help in the garden/yard (science! botany!) and generally run around outside (PE!). Lessons are completed during the heat of the day.

 

I've actually found more things for the kids to do during the traditional school year than during the summer. Plus, the crowds aren't as big.

[2cents]

During summer we add Hogwart's Summer Correspondence School. A friend and I write and assemble curriculum for areas that the children are interested in. Last year we did Honeyduke's Home Ec, Potions (science experiments), Charms & Spells (crafts and reading). This year we're doing more Honeyduke's, Calligraphy, Herbology and Astronomy. The girls love this fun summer tradition. They all meet once a week to work on the projects together and go swimming. There are yahoo groups for this and they are helpful but my friend and I have more fun making our own 'texts' and assignments. We usually follow a theme.

[robsiew]

We are schooling year round for the first time this year. I really cut back our schedule for the summer. We are only schooling 3 days a week. We do only 2 independent subjects in the morning (writing and math). Spelling and grammar both only once a week, Latin review for my oldest only once a week). Then we still do science and history together. We are done by 11am or so.

 

Then, I make sure they read for 1/2 hour each "school" night in the book they are reading for school. They don't mind as that's their normal reading time anyway.

 

After chores the rest of the day is theirs. We swim a lot, they play video games, play with friends and we have baseball twice a week. We have a few camping trips scheduled... friends over. We feel like we have a break because we don't school Fri/Sat/Sun or Mon. That gives us several days off in a row. They get to sleep in the days we don't do school.

 

It has worked really well so far. They are actually fine doing school because for them this is nothing! 2 subjects a day is great for them! We aren't moving at a fast pace subject wise, but I'm okay with that. We all need a bit of "down time!" I thought I might hear complaining when no one else they know has to do school, but really... none so far. Maybe I'm just lucky? :confused:

[WiseOwlKnits]

We school year round, but I try to add more fun things in during the summer. Each of my kiddos has their own special art box, full of little kits that I find at craft stores. They get to pick things out of there whenever they want to go do in addition to the box(es) of craft supplies we normally have on hand. Today my DD made fairies out of beads, pipe cleaners, and fake flowers and my DS "painted" a racecar with markers.

 

My kids both take swimming classes year-round and DD takes dance classes so that keeps us busy. We also frequent the waterpark at our local Y and jumping/bouncy places. It's too hot here (TX) to do much outside during the day so we don't go out much. In the spring and late fall when the weather cools off, we go camping. :)

[khall]

We go year round, and our state requires 175 days, so we "officially" do school four days a week during the school year and 2 days a week during the summer. These are days that we make our way through the lesson plans for our curriculum. We actually do much more learning than this, but the kiddos are only 8 and 9, so I don't think they realize yet what's going on when we play a math card game, do tangrams, science experiments, cooking, nature walks, computer games, watch Liberty's Kids, etc. on a "non-school" day. They love summer and we have a great rec. program, so they do tennis a few days a week, track a few days a week, and arts and crafts daily. On the "official school days" they know they need to get up and get going and do their math and LA lessons prior to going to rec. department activities. They also participate in the summer reading program at the library, go swimming at the town pool in the afternoon, and each of them has a week at a daycamp of their choosing. This year DS9 is going to Lego Robotics camp and DD8 is going to animal camp at the Audubon Society. They're excited about this and I haven't pointed out to them that they each picked a camp that's five days of hands on science! If you're flexible and creative, you can squeeze in "school work" and still have fun! Oh, we also do a read aloud after lunch every day and they really look forward to that also.

[johnandtinagilbert]

We took off 4 weeks so they still get "summer" but it is back to business now.

We hit the basics: math (1 lesson/day) and reading (timed based on age) and play games as annual review (geography, latin rummy, science, games we made throughout the year) and we use the time to catch up anywhere we need to, cook more, teach life skills, play and have more sleepovers.

 

We do take off completely at other times (2 weeks in Dec, March, a week at Thanksgiving). Our plan for next year is mostly 7 weeks on, 1 week off. I have to do this to avoid burn out. We followed ps schedule this past year, for the first time fully....TERRIBLE! We were all so burnt out!

[iquilt]

Our summer has been a bit dissapointing for the kids; we decided to take a longer break since we are in a new neighborhood, get to know the kids out of school, etc. Well, it turns out everybody works all summer and the kids are all in daycare all day everyday. So, we are starting school in August after a nice break for us in July. Each girl has a week long art camp and everyone has swimming lessons, plus they are all doing the library reading program for a free book.

[Mommyfaithe]

I always have grand ideas which never pan out. This year, I will have all the younger kids do 15 minutes of math, 15 min of LA and read...read...read. Summer here is mostly taken up by swim team, swim lessons, swim meets, tennis, bike riding, weekend getaway trips, night time read alouds etc.

 

We take July off from academic work and focus on social skills:D and I focus on putting together our next semester of school. We start school the second week of August when swim team and championships are over.

 

Faithe

[johnandtinagilbert]

I just blogged about this.