summer school

[kvmck]

Every year I have intentions to school throughout the summer and then we don't do as much as I'd like. We have a good problem of having lots of neighbor kids to play with and in addition to that we take care of a friend's child all summer.
I would still like to continue at least some school during the summer and was hoping some of you ladies could share your experience and advice of what has worked/hasn't worked for you.
There are a few reasons why I think continuing with school during the summer is important is for us 1)I want them to keep moving forward, or at least not go backwards and forget things (esp. math, handwriting, reading) and 2) I really want my children to know that learning is something we do year round and we don't need a 3 month break from it --we are the type of homeschooling family who will take a whole week of spontaneously just because, so we do take breaks which leads to 3) I want the freedom to take time off when we want to/need to and I can't have that freedom if I'm schooling on a sept-may schedule and 4) we don't do any major vacations or anything in the summer so it actually gets a bit boring to not do school
Thank you

[mamanlait]

Kristen,
We homeschool through the summer...sort of. For my 8 y.o., we don't use a curriculum other than math (we do one page a day OR play a math game). My younger 5 yo dd has begun reading this year so we will continue our phonics over the summer (site word cards and slowly continue our curriculum). We limit "school" to an hour for all of this. At night we read one chapter of a read aloud through out summer. Other than play-time, our days are filled with "your choice" subjects. I have several books that my girls have been wanting to read (one is from the same publisher as the Pioneer Sampler science in Bigger but related to the Civil War), another is a topic that one has been wanting to study (teeth and dentition). So...summer for us is slowly maintaining or ever so slightly moving forward with the child's weaker subject area (math or phonics for us) and getting to pursue their own interests by reading books or taking field trips. Oh, yes, and I do take off at least 2 weeks without any of this (4 times a year). I try to do this during the cooler summer weather when the kids really want to be outside. Since we are only inside 1 hour a day, though, we still manage to swim the whole summer long (we are always done by 10 am).

We will stop HOD sometime in mid-June and pick it back up in mid-August. The price we pay for taking 6 weeks off during the real school year is a slightly shortened summer. This just seems to work best for me (I need frequent breaks...just like I need frequent snacks, I guess ).

Admittedly, we homeschooled with HOD through the summer last year at half-pace and that worked well but I was really needing a break by August (it's really hard psychologically, at least on me, to be "doing" real school when it's summer). I think if public school kids were in school year around, it would be very different. We live on a farm so neighbors aren't the problem, it's totally me.

I don't think a homeschool mother EVER stops homeschooling The curriculum might stop, but we keep on ticking away! I'm looking forward to hearing about other summer plans!

Amy

dd8 Bigger
dd5 LHFHG (half pace)

[Dorla]

Kristen,
We also home-school all year round. Right now we are experiencing changes with family moving into our house for a while and I know school will not be the same while they get settled in. So I have decided to do 1 page of the Guide 5 days a week and rules for electronic games and TV remain the same: only on Saturday nights and Sundays. Educational (electronic) games are permitted during the week. So far, this has worked for us. We do take holidays off and when things are "normal" we complete 2 pages of the Guide.
Good luck!
Dorla

[my3sons]

You've already gotten some good ideas here! I was just thinking you could just go half-speed 4 days a week for the summer, and then maybe take a chunk of time completely off and start up full-speed in the fall (or whenever it fits best for you). Just a thought!
In Christ,
Julie

[kvmck]

Thank you for the ideas... I just know that I have to have a plan and I have to tell my children the plan or we will never stick with it. I am leaning toward doing half speed (equivalent of one page a day) for 4 days a week. I think we'll do reading out loud (them to me), math, and handwriting every day and then just add in the other "boxes".
-I need frequent breaks as well, which is probably why we school all year round--I like lots of short breaks instead of one/two/three longer breaks (very well could be b/c we don't do anything really exciting for which we need a long break!)
We are "behind" in math because we have been playing math games instead of doing math workbooks.... so we'll have to catch up with that.
That's a good point about reading other books...last summer neither one of my older kids were at a point where they could read, by themselves, the type of books that would hold their interest for long but this summer will be completely different in that respect.
Dorla, hope all goes well with family moving in. I know that can be a stressful and exciting time as we experienced that (but before our kids were old enough to homeschool).