Summer School Days

Summer Learning Station 2014

Summer Student 2014

While I was writing my post about our hatching robins, I realized that it had been a year since I had last written anything for this blog.  I began a post about our plans for summer learning and never got beyond selecting pictures. Time zips by! So here we are again at the beginning of the summer, just days beyond saying goodbye to another academic year and I have already instituted the Mom School: Summer 2015. Last year we had lists -- lists of want-to-do activities and must-do activities (chores and scholarly pursuits). It gave our summer some direction, but this year, I wanted more routine. One of the reasons my kids thrive in the classroom is due to the predictability of a clear routine. So, this year I spent an afternoon the weekend before school let out devising our summer schedule. While I don't intend for it to be rigid, having a daily and weekly plan has already made me feel more confident about the direction of our summer. The kids know exactly what I want them to do before they head out to play and we can all look forward to out-of-the house activities every week. We're only on day two of summer vacation and Tuesday didn't look at all like Monday or like our Summer Agenda. We have a direction, though, and that makes the long days of summer seem like opportunities to be enjoyed instead of hours to be endured -- even with the bickering already begun!

I found these two books at a library sale .
We will be reading selections from them daily. 

Summer Plans 2015: Our daily agenda and summer binder. The binder contains the Summer Routine, miscellaneous worksheets, writing prompts for journals, summer reading program logs, "To Make" and "To Go" ideas, and a "Been There" section.  

Summer Plans 2014: Lists!

Another Mom School student from 2014:
So much growth in a year!