Do You Do School in the Summer?

[Hilary]

I'm curious who schools through the summer, and what you do.

 

We usually take a break, because I feel like I need one too :) This summer my older son is attending our state's Governor's Scholars Program, so he'll be gone for five weeks. My DD, home from college, will be working at the local children's museum and taking Italian 2 at university. I feel like this would be a good opportunity to work with my soon-to-be ninth grader; I'm afraid that, except for some summer art classes, he'll end up wasting his time on video games. He hasn't had a really stellar year of school, due to OCD and other issues.

 

I was thinking of starting him on some easy Latin, since he'll be taking an online class in the fall, and maybe doing Teaching Company's History of Ancient Egypt, since I want to do the Ancients this coming year. Oh, and I'm putting together a summer reading list too.

 

So what's everyone else doing?

[debbiec]

I do, for the same reason you mentioned ~ to keep them from sitting in front of the TV. But, we're getting better at planning more extracurricularrs in the summer, since we try not to so much during the school year.

But, we still do some schooling ~

[Jenny in Atl]

Yes, just a lighter ... math, languages, writing.

[Guest Katia]

Yes, we do. We take one solid week off after each year and do nothing. I don't care if they veg in front of the TV or computer. They have earned it.

 

Then, we do 8 weeks of school, but lighter. More like keep-up with math, computer literacy courses, finish up any school not done from last year, swimming, drivers ed, stuff like that.

 

After that we take 3-4 weeks as "summer vacation" for camps, family travel, whatever. Then it's back to work.

[Jenstet]

I have been thinking about this recently. My original plan was to do nothing but I think I have a better idea. I was going to sign my dd up for Time4Learning. I think they have a trial for 3 weeks. If she likes it we may do that for awhile. I think we have 6 weeks off this summer.

 

Personally I plan on planning and preparing for the next year and organizing the house better. Fun day trips once a week or so. Catch up with our PS friends we hardly see now. Taking care of the garden and the pool takes a bit of time. We keep up with our Karate classes too.

[Nan in Mass]

I would LOVE not to. We work slowly, so to help fill the gap, at a minimum, my children read for a few hours every day. I save out the most fun stuff. Sometimes we've done an art book, too, over the summer. My poor older one, who travels during the school year, inevitably winds up having to finish his math book and do quite a lot of reading and writing. Sometimes he's finishing up science, too. Sigh. The math at the end of a long day of sailing is a killer. We're falling asleep and the rest of the family is complaining about us having the cabin light on so they can't sleep and w're doing NEM so it takes forever... Can't have everything, though, I guess.

-Nan

[Gwen in VA]

Somehow we always end up doing math over the summer. :-/

 

I encourage the kids to do something different over the summer -- volunteering at one of the many history museums around here, building the kayak (hopefully this summer's project for ds2), kiting, gardening, long (for us) bicycling trips, field trips, visiting with friends, working if possible, etc.

 

Then we fill in the longish gaps with school -- I can ALWAYS find something that we didn't get to last year! :D

[Kareni]

Likely summer events for my current 11th grader ...

 

Summer reading assignments for a couple of AP classes,

 

Working on essays on the Common Application for next year's collegeapplications (wow!),

 

Researching colleges,

 

Possibly a language course (mention has been made of Arabic),

 

and

 

A summer job

 

Regards,

Kareni

[H0MEFree]

ABSOLUTELY!

We do go softer, but we do not let our children un-learn and vegetate in any manner during the summer.

We take lots of breaks all year- and I am far from a disciplinarian so school is lax.

[kpupg]

I'm curious who schools through the summer, and what you do.

 

So what's everyone else doing?

 

Yes. We have always done math year-round (one week off at Christmas). Lighter lessons in the summer, but every day.

 

This year, we'll add a short Latin drill several times per week, just to stave off forgetting.

 

Beginning 2009, ds will use the summers to knock out those pesky state-required courses that I just want to check the boxes for -- Health, etc.

 

Karen