Do you summer school? If so, how?

[Tsuga]

My mom always required us public-schoolers to do stuff over the summer. An age-appropriate challenging book report a month, math worksheets, plus a science experiment and social studies (newspaper work).

 

I realized that some here get homeschooled summer break--double-awesome! :)

 

If you summer school, what do you do? If this has been asked before, sorry.

[SparklyUnicorn]

We school year round.  Summers tend to be lighter.  On the lightest days it is always reading and math. 

 

 

[Arcadia]

We actually do more academic work in summer because it is too hot (100dF) to go out and sunset is later. We also have no outside classes as their usual classes are on summer break so less disruptions.

 

ETA:

We do family vacations off season when it is cheaper and cooler :)

[eternallytired]

We've been schooling year-round, with lighter or heavier loads as feels appropriate.  (We seem to naturally go through cycles of about six weeks or so.)  That said, summer tends to have unusual class/camp/reunion opportunities that change the rhythm of life.  This year we will do just math and reading to accommodate swimming lessons in June, and we'll follow up our "school lite" month with two weeks off to visit family in July.  Then we'll leap back in again.  Next year is not a family reunion year, so we'll probably break things up with a daycamp or two and a few days off around holidays. (I count Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day as summer's sandwich of holidays.)

[Garga]

Here are my notes, cut and pasted here, about what we'll be doing this summer.  Other than a few odds and ends that we need to finish up (some math and Figuratively Speaking book), all of this stuff is what we consider fun.

 

As you can see it's a very loose plan.  We won't do everything every day.  We'll do this stuff for maybe 2.5 hours a day and then spend the rest of the day at the pool or relaxing.  Well...they'll relax.  I'll be obsessing over preparing for high school for most of the summer.  I am NOT looking forward to that.  Oh well.

 

Math:  CLE, SAT, ACT (20)

ART:   "How to teach art to children"   (30)

Mark Kistler (60)

HISTORY:  Timeline  (10)

BIBLE:  Read a chapter a day  (10)

READING:  I read to them, they read  (30)

Figuratively Speaking  (CANNOT do this in the school year, but it needs to be done.  It will have to be during summer.)

Do the Shakespeare book

SCIENCE:  The Story of Science  (60)

LOGIC:  Read from book, do puzzles  (30)

TYPING:  Find something for Logan to type.  Aargh.

Writing:  Write a letter to our future selves and put somewhere to be found later.

Time Management/Studying:  During the summer, learn about time management.  Read a book or something.  

[EmseB]

This is our first homeschool summer, so I'm trying to figure out what to do, exactly. It's tough because my oldest expects to finish school for the year, and I feel like if we stop completely I will never get this train going again. I know it isn't exactly true, but it seems in some ways easier to keep chugging down the track at a slow speed than to stop and have to get started again.

 

Right now Khan academy and xtramath are on the agenda, along with MP Astronomy (plenty of integrated LA right there), and maaaaybe Prima Latina. Plus swim lessons.

[regentrude]

When the kids were younger, the only subject we schooled formally in the summer was math. We took off a few weeks, and then continued regular math most days.

Other than that, no seat work. Plenty of education, though: tons of books, audiobooks, travel, museums, live performances, nature centers, hikes.

 

 

[Rosie_0801]

We school year round.  Summers tend to be lighter.  On the lightest days it is always reading and math. 

 

We school year round too, but on the lightest days it is flaking out in front of BBC flicks like Jane Austen or David Attenborough. We're going to study Hinduism next year, so I'm going to buy that polyester masterpiece that is Mahabarat for too-hot-to-even-do-the-3R's summer viewing.

[sdobis]

I've only required math and reading during the summer. My daughter asked to work on her spelling over the summer, so we'll do that as well.

[SKL]

My kids have been pretty busy in past summers, between academic camps, artsy and outdoorsy camps, travel, therapy, and schoolwork at home.

 

This year I plan to dial it back some.  Most weeks they'll attend morning camps, come home and do some independent school work, have free time, evening sports/classes, and then do some work with me in the evenings/weekends.  The evening/weekend work will be some combination of MCT LA, Beast Academy and other fun math, Story of the World, Story of Science (?), reading together, playing music, visiting museums, chess, outdoorsy stuff, and scout badge stuff.

 

The independent work will include finishing leftover 3rd grade workbooks and supplements, workbooks for vocab development (my favorite is Wordly Wise), workbooks for reading comprehension in the content areas, math drills and word problems, summer bridge workbook, and maybe other stuff.

 

The summer day camps / classes will include math camp, a science camp (biology/survival theme), Latin American culture camp, and other less academic ones.

[hellen]

We actually do more academic work in summer because it is too hot (100dF) to go out and sunset is later. We also have no outside classes as their usual classes are on summer break so less disruptions.

 

ETA:

We do family vacations off season when it is cheaper and cooler :)

Same here.

[KnSmith6]

This is our first year homeschooling (K) but we will continue through the summer.  Much of June and part of July is taken up with vacations and family visiting, so we won't do a lot of formal school, but plan to do reading reading reading every day, math most days and just science through a bunch of new Ocean, Space and Animal books and fact cards he recieved for his birthday (TODAY!).  We will 'officially start 1st grade' at the end of July once all vacations, family and VBS are over. 

[sweetpea3829]

We summer year round, but our summer schedule is much lighter than our regular schedule.  Last summer...towards the end of July, I was regretting my summer scheduled and really just wanted to not be doing anything at all...lol. 

 

We took two weeks off at the end of August and by the end of THAT, I was regretting THAT decision because the kids were so mischievous.  

 

Depending on which of my kids we're talking about, their actual summer schedule varies.  

 

DD continues with her Math curriculum, because she is behind.  She also has spiral review of math concepts and fact drills.  

 

DS worked on Beast Academy last summer and will be doing Khan Academy and some Beast Academy this summer.  But not as much as last year...he burnt out a bit.  

 

Next DS is finishing MUS Alpha and spending time reviewing number sense.

 

Youngest DS is starting MUS Alpha.

 

Oldest two are doing EIW grade 2 over the summer so they can start grade 3 in the fall.  

 

We are not doing anything formal for reading...but last summer, the oldest two completed two literature studies.  

 

 

We are all doing science (we rotate science and history...six months for each).  

 

My goal is to have them done by noon so they can spend the rest of the day playing.

 

Oh and...we gradually ease into our summer schedule.  This is the trickiest time of year to plan for....the transition between school-term and summer schedule.  But at the end of May, I will have them take a week off and we will celebrate the "end of the school year" that week before kicking off summer schedule.  That gives them some closure...and I think that's important.  

[mom2att]

We do school-lite in the summer. As we finish with our outsourced courses in the spring, those are DONE. We continue with whatever we were doing at home until we are finished with the book. For some books, like Math and Grammar, we just start the next book when we finish one, so we never really stop those subjects. But Spelling, Latin, etc. books get put away when they are done, until the next school year officially starts (August or September).

 

So really we are only doing 1 - 2 hours per day, generally only 1 as it gets later in the summer. We do take July off for family vacation, travel, and other activities. The year we tried not doing any school in the summer we lasted only a few weeks because everyone was whining and arguing and looking for something to do. I figure if we're here all day anyway, we might as well devote an hour or so to learning, so we do. But we are also much more apt to drop school and take a day off to go to the beach, pool, or whatever in the summer. I like the flexibility and relaxed atmosphere of a summer schedule.

[Loesje22000]

It depends on the summer what we do.

 

Sometimes unfinished subjects (geography)

Often math to keep it fresh.

 

This year it will be French, Science and Technical Education.

French will be reading and making french vocabulary crosswords.

Technical education will be a lot of practical projects. We will have time to finish them properly.

Science will be Physical science and chemistry, so again a lot of hands on activities.

[PeachyDoodle]

This is the first year we're doing "school lite" for the summer. Here's what we're aiming for:

• Summer unit study on astrophysics (dd's choice of topic) -- reading, experiments, more videos, etc. than we typically use for school to keep things light
• Math -- continue our usual pattern 4 days/week
• Latin -- review only, no new material
• Learn to type
• Free reading -- dd would do this on her own anyway, but we'll take weekly trips to the library and I plan to encourage her to try new genres
• Field trips -- one day per weeks, some educational, some just for fun

School shouldn't take more than 1-2 hours on any given day. We'll be taking at least one full week off per month for vacations, etc. so our "summer term" is only 7-8 weeks.

 

Also, ds will get daily phonics lessons (10-15 min), plus lots of read-alouds and directed play activities to keep him occupied while dd works. I find that if I don't give some direction my two just bicker all day, or ask for snacks or TV time. If I can get their juices flowing, they are much more likely to entertain themselves through the rest of the day. Plus, it keeps me from sitting on my tail reading the boards for hours! :p

[happypamama]

We will be off entirely for five weeks in June, though they'll have a half day camp in there one week.

 

In July, we are going to do a summer intensive. Five weeks of schoolwork. It will take a couple of hours a day. Each day, we will have our family basket (about thirty minutes, rotating list of things: read aloud novel, hymn study, vocabulary, Bible reading, Scripture memory, poetry, other reading), and then we will do a few subjects: art, picture study, composer study, science reading, and science projects. Each of the older two children will probably also have one subject they are finishing up: writing for DD and history for DS1. Then when we start our regular work in August, we will have accomplished a lot of our extras and will be in a good routine, and then by September, we will have accomplished a lot, so I think it'll set a good tone for the year. Our main extracurricular is year round, as is DH's schedule, and summer here is hot and can be boring, so we might as well stay inside near the AC unit (the one in the schoolroom is the only one on the first floor) and get a l out of work done. This lets us take off one day every week when we are out for errands, and it lets us have more breaks at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and springtime.

[73349]

We school year-round to keep on a light schedule all year and not have drastic changes. Our outside activities mostly stop for the summer.

 

This July/August I plan to continue math, use a different handwriting book, talk about writing systems around the world; do MBtP Economic Cycles, The Private Eye, and Song School Spanish; try starting Drawing with Children; and do a little phonics, spelling and poetry.

[jjeepa]

We started homeschooling year round after a painful re-entry to the school year at the beginning of our 2nd year.  My kids just didn't do well with that long of a break.  So now it's all 12 months with plenty of breaks along the way.  We do slow down a bit for summer and usually only do math, language, grammar, art, and tons of reading.  This summer, I was inspired by another thread and have decided to do a lit study of Narnia.  It's been years since my 17 and 11 year old children have read them...so we'll dig in.  It's my last chance to read Narnia again with my high schooler   :001_smile:   I am most excited about that.  

[J-rap]

Our summers were pretty busy with other things, so we only did summer school if we were behind, or if I really wanted to get something done before the beginning of the next school year.  That mostly didn't happen until high school, and usually it was math.   :)  We just did it.  I'd maybe require three lessons/week, and they could figure out their own schedule.

 

One thing we always did though was read lots and lots of literature during the summer.  We mostly tried to stick with the classics, or when younger, at least somewhat meaty books.  My kids all loved to read though, so they enjoyed sitting out on the porch in the hot summer reading their books and drinking cold lemonade.

 

 

[MinivanMom]

I don't require any formal schoolwork in the summer; we take a full 2 & 1/2 months off from schoolwork.

[PagesandFields]

We've stumbled into schooling with the weather.  Spring and Fall are the most wonderful times to go outside... so we tend to do less work then...  Summer and Winter are good times for inside school stuff..  We go year round, taking the biggest break in December (for solstice, a bday, christmas and new years)... In spring and fall there are always a few weeks we take off.  They're not scheduled ahead because we take them off when the weather is good to play/farm chores/garden, etc..  This week... for example... we took off because it's cool outside so a good week to play, snack, and do way too many farm/garden things.  

 

Growing up I just read read read read during the summers.. 

[jmc1970]

We do the subjects that I just can't fit in during the school year, but are considered "fun", like typing, geography and literature. They are already reading a ton over the summer anyhow, so why not incorporate some good literature into it :)

[Seeking Squirrels]

We plan to continue through the summer but a bit lighter. We have science to finish because we didn't get to it a lot through the winter (it was all units on animals and plants that we needed to find outside!) I want to do at least a little bit of math regularly so we don't have to spend months in review. I think I will also continue spelling through the summer. We always read, so that won't change.

 

I'm thinking something of a loop schedule for summer. Reading every day and then math, science, and spelling on a loop so depending on the day we can do just reading, or all four, or anything in between.

[Carol in Cal.]

Math every weekday unless a summer camp or out of town vacation was planned.  This enabled us to skip a lot of review lessons at the beginning of each math book (using Saxon) because without the summer gap it was fresh in DD's mind.  Also, once she started learning grammar in earnest, I would take a couple of sentences once or twice a week, write them on a white board, and we would practice labelling the parts of speech and diagramming the sentences.  Again, this was just to retain that skill over the summer.

 

Other than that, I always tried to get a week or two of somewhat academic summer camp in--one in science/technology, and possibly one more in music or fine art.  We are lucky that this is an area with great science/tech camps in things like robotics, programming, marine biology, etc.  

 

Free reading was always encouraged, and sometimes discussed.  I was always ready to buy or borrow 'the definitive collection' of living books on any subject.  

 

Other than that we did normal family stuff with an eye toward fitting educational aspects into it. When we visited Carson City, we toured the mine, studied the rock cycle wall display, and noticed that the technology of mining varied between that and the mining sites we had visited in CA.  We tended to visit living history sites, and do those self-guided brochure style nature walks.  We were a learning family, in general.

 

 

[Mrs Twain]

Mostly we do three R's. Dh and I make goals for number of math lessons to complete and reading (either number of pages to read or list of books for the summer, of appropriately challenging books). Half of the reading books are assigned and the other half can be chosen by the child with parent approval.

 

I also have the kids write journals now and then to practice writing and to document our adventures.

 

We also do a lot of sports, including swim team and camps. Physical fitness is an important part of summer goals.

 

Since we have our kids work so hard during the regular school year, we pay them for their summer work to give them motivation. That way they don't feel they are being burdened far more than their public school friends.

[My3girls]

We taper off just like we ramp up. We finish our various curricula at differet times so the load becomes lighter and lighter. We test the last week of June. We'll take a week off for 4th of July then start ramping up for an official start date of August 3.

[cintinative]

Generally we do just a few things in the summer to keep up skills that might drop off. This summer we are continuing math at a much slower pace, doing one sentence or two of copywork, doing Latin review online twice a week, typing three times a week, reading every day, and I read aloud every day.  My oldest has a math drill type sheet to do every day and my youngest does Big Brainz every day (math drill game).  We are only a few days into our "summer" and I am already thinking of adding things due to boredom. There are some unused science kits I want to drag out and I might have us do some informal art. We will be on vacation for a couple weeks and probably won't do anything then but read aloud. We will start ramping back up to school in early August.  

[strawberryjam]

We are following our usual curriculum all through the summer, but keeping a slightly lighter schedule and adding in some extra new things.

 

My "summer school" goals are:

 

1. Finish Mensa Kids reading list. Most of the ones left are chapter books so that will keep us busy.

2. "History of Science" unit study by Beautiful Feet Books - with some extra books.

3. An Astronomy unit study

4. Swimming Lessons, bike riding.

5. Finish up Story of the World Ancients (I try to go all out with the activities and books - so it's time consuming, but fun!)

 

I had a bunch of extra language arts stuff on the list but now that we started CLE language arts workbooks into our rotation I realize that really covers everything we need to cover and the kids love it and it's easy to do on their own. 

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I try to make our summer school light and fun. We also use the summer to finish up anything that wasn't finished during the school year. For this year that means:

 

Math - Finish the year's SM for oldest and youngest

Drill math facts

LOF, BA, math games (fun math)

 

Language Arts - Finish current levels of LLATL for older

two

Continue working through LOE Foundations

with younger two (they think this is fun)

Lots of great read alouds (fun)

Plenty of free reading and library visits

 

Science - Unit study on birds, my kids' current interest

 

Geography - US geography with books, coloring books,

games, puzzles

 

Art and crafting

 

Piano practice

 

Karate

 

 

We won't do all of these things every day and will probably only do school 3 or 4 mornings a week. We will also have a week at Vacation Bible School and the library's summer reading program. The reading program usually offers activities 1 or 2 days a week. Last year they did a science theme. There will also be more documentaries and educational TV for rainy afternoons, field trips and nature walks, and several days a week at the beach, pond, or pool. Summit is short here and we do our best to enjoy it. :-)

[carla1971]

We do school-lite too, with much (but not all) chosen by my children depending on their interest. So here's this summer's plan

 

Math for both: chiefly Beast Academy for my girl, chiefly AOPS for my boy, with a little bit of Zaccaro and Borac thrown in and lots of fun games

 

Writing for both: my girl because she needs it, my boy because he loves it. In both cases it will be mostly freewriting, plus I'm trying to put together a writing club (as I wrote in a separate thread)

 

Delight-driven unit studies: beginner's Latin and Ancient Greece for my girl, beginner's Ancient Greek and Scratch for my boy

 

plus lots of field trips, reading and crafting!

 

 

[Tsuga]

Thank you very much for your replies. These are a great sample of responses! 

 

Funny about paying them... my public school kids are like, "But Homeschool Friend has all summer off AND she gets out earlier!!!" LOL!

[idnib]

We school the entire year. In the summer we usually have family come and visit so those days are vacation. We sometimes go somewhere too. But on school days, we actually do more than during the year because we have fewer obligations such as classes, lessons, book club, etc. 

 

We've just stick with our normal stuff, at least until now. This summer we're doing an intensive but fun (I hope!) geography unit. We've been rather lax there. And DS really wants to take a Coursera class but it's not until summer so that's happening too.