The Things I Love Most

Tips To Enjoying Life With Your Family

How to Enjoy Your Summer – Summer School

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I wanted to show you these cards that I made up for my kids.  I really like them to have a fun summer, but I also feel it’s important to have stuff they are responsible to do during their day so they don’t get bored.  They are 4×6 laminated with 12 squares on the back.  These are the things my kids do daily {plus laundry}.  In the morning they usually get the top half + music lessons done before they go out to play with friends around 9 am.  It gets really hot here so after lunch they usually come in and do their handwriting/spelling and math lesson.  I let my kids play computer games for 20 minutes in the afternoon and so we rotate and I help the 2 that aren’t playing the computer games.  It usually takes them about 1/2 hour to get that done.  My kids read at night before they go to bed and I read to my kids that can’t read.  At the end of the day I put a star on the square on the back.  When they are full we go out for ice cream. 
pictures for blog

Summer learning is so important.  It really doesn’t have to take a long time during your day.  1/2 hour to an hour is all.  It helps break up those long summer days and keeps their minds active.  These are the subjects I think are important to work on during the school year. 
Music Lessons
My daughter takes Violin and Piano from someone in our area, but I am teaching my 6 year old piano on my own.  You can even just play music and have them dance around and play with play instruments!
Math
I have a great math program that I use called Right Start math.  We use it for homeschool so I am just going to continue with that.  The lessons are fast and fun. 
If you don’t have anything for math there are a lot of printable worksheet that you can print.  I found these sites…

Your kids can also play math games online.
Handwriting
There are a few things that I do each day to help my kids with their hand writing. 

  1. They have to write in their journal.  If they can’t write I write it for them.  I like to use the blank top paper where they can color a picture on the top. 
  2. I have them write their alphabet and numbers
  3. I have them write sentences with spelling words
  4. I give them a list of spelling words each day to write down.  If they don’t know the word then I have them write it 3 times and do it the next day.

I don’t buy handwriting paper.  I print it off online. Here are some of my favorite places. 

  • This site DonnaYoung.org is awesome!  She has all sorts of handwriting papers from grade level to blank top.
  • Do2Learn also has some great writing paper. 
  • I love HandWritingWorksheets.com. You can customize your worksheet for your kids in Print, D’Nealian Style or Cursive. You can also print off blank worksheet of any size.
  • Print N’ Practice

Spelling
My kids get 15-20 spelling words a weeks.  As part of their handwriting I have them write the ones they don’t know daily for the week and do a quick test on Fridays.  I  have a list from my Writing Road to Reading, but you can find lists for grade level all over on line!
Reading
We love to read in our family.  My 6 year old is just starting to read Chapter books.  My 8 year old is above grade  level in reading and over the summer we are encouraging her to read more nonfiction books.  My 3 year old loves to be read to and to sit and look at books for a good 1/2 hour.  I like my kids to read a half hour a day.  (but for the older ones, especially at night before bed they like to read longer)
We also like to get involved in Summer Reading Programs.  We have our own summer reading program in our family.  If you read 600 pages you get $6.  {that and extra chores like hard ones such as washing the car and such are the only thing we pay our kids for} I have a sheet with 600 squares for them to mark off.
You can also get involved in local summer reading programs…

There are a lot of Summer Work Books that are great.  We always use pages out of summer work books, but my kids don’t like to do them every day. 
Lastly we love to go to the library and get books on certain subjects.  Animals, Science, Plants, Geography, etc. and read them during the week.  One of my favorite things is seeing my older kids read to my younger kids.  We get the ranger rick and my daughter always reads it to her brothers!

Comments

  1. Thank you so much for giving links for much of the stuff you’re doing with your kids. This will be a great addition to our summer schedule…definitely want to keep my kidlets minds sharp!

  2. yeah you did it. Thanks! I will definitely be coming back to get these links once school gets out. Hopefully I can keep up a good schedule that they will do.