If you’ve been reading around here, you know that we homeschool year round. We’ve tried taking the whole summer off and it was horrible trying to get started again in September. So we school year round with a lighter schedule in the summer. We have hard cold winters, especially this one that just passed and we want to enjoy all of our time outdoors as we can in the summer months.
We are not morning people so we spend our mornings outside hanging around and then we the mid day heat is on we work on school. Once subject that we just can’t drop is math. My M1 is heading into the 8th grade and I want to fill up any holes that he’s missing and really make sure he knows his stuff before he jumps into high school math. I have so little time left to do so.
Saxon 1 went really well with M2 but I think he would be better challenged with Singapore Math without all of the drilling in Saxon which moves too slowly for him.
We will school 4 days a week and with fun project day on the last day. I want to keep things fresh and fun but also allow time for me to plan for the fall as well. I also want to relax I’m heading to towards burning out so I just want to sit and relax and enjoy some of my books.
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Keyboard – we were blessed with an upcoming review for keyboard lessons the same day our keyboard arrived.
M1 reads for at least one hour everyday, this will be a book of his choosing. For writing we’re not using a curriculum, he is  free writing, something that he hasn’t had a lot of time to do during the school year. He likes to work on creative writing by typing them up on the computer or he likes to work on comic books.
This book was in the ultimate homemaking bundle that I purchased and I thought what a great book to go through over the summer – How to Manage Your Mouth: A 30 Day Wholesome Talk Challenge. As I looked over the book, I thought that it would be a great book to go over with my boys as well so I purchased How to Manage Your Mouth for Kids. If you need to purchase both books, there’s a bundle price as well that will save you $2.
**until the end of June if you use the code “SUMMERSAVINGS” you will get 50% off.
So if I come upon any small unit studies I’ll through them in for M2, he likes themed projects to work on. We are taking a relaxed approach to learning. I always have arts and crafts and science experiments books from the library for them to take out. I don’t plan anything really but I have supplies available for them to use.
How much Screen Time is Allowed?
I allow an hour of screen time for each child, right now M2 really loves watching Octanauts that comes on at a specific time so he has another 30 minutes to use on the computer or for video games. M1 will use it for video games or the computer depending on what he is obsessed with at the moment. He’s just discovered Minecraft so we are waiting to get the PS4 version for it. This occurs at the end of the day after we’ve spend a lot of time outdoors and playing.
When we are are vacation, as in no school at all. They still get an hour a day but they have to read first, M2 reads with me while M1 has to read for at least one hour.
We take two weeks off at the start of July and two weeks off at the end of August before we start up again in September. This has given us the right amount of time off and kept my kids’ math fresh. This also gives me an awesome break and time off to plan and regroup while keeping somewhat of a schedule in the summer. This allows the kids to spend a lot of time outside and building which are their favorite hobbies right now.
Are you homeschooling through the summer? Or do you take a break?
