My homeschooling career got off to an inauspicious start. My very first week of kindergarten started off with my 2 month-old baby in the hospital and my 3 and 5 year old boys needing me at home.
With that challenge we were behind when we started!! Which wasn’t terrible because, honestly how far behind can you be in kindergarten!?
But the following year, I discovered that teaching my first born to read was going to be difficult. It turned out he had a slight learning disability that he later overcame, but we couldn’t keep up with my curriculum and we fell even further behind.
With three little boys to manage, one who was having difficulties learning to read, I felt a lot of pressure to get everything done. We struggled to make it across the end-of-year finish line. I was looking forward to a well-earned summer vacation.
But a curious thing happened. I discovered that without school to keep us focused and on task, the household seemed to fall apart a little bit. I was equally surprised to discover that my little boys seemed to hate the lack of structure.
That was the year I realized that I could homeschool in the summer. In fact, homeschooling in the summertime seemed to be a better fit for my family. Three more children joined the family, and I determined that I was less and less stressed about getting everything done, because I knew that we could catch up in June, July and August. While my friends seemed to be frantic that they weren’t done with their curriculum in April and May, I wasn’t panicking at all – because my school was in session all year round!
Each year has been a little different. This year I only have one student – a middle schooler going into 7th grade. She got all of her subjects done including math, so we are spending the summer doing a lot of reading and some field trips, running every morning and keeping up her piano practice.
Then of course with my 3 year old granddaughter, there are always crafts to do for her.
But here is a list of things that I observed on my homeschool adventure during the summer months.
1. Good habits built up in the school year can easily go kaput during the lazy hazy days of summer! Why should we lose all that hard-earned ground!? Year round homeschooling helped to turn those good habits into a way of life.
2. Use it or lose it… and some kids do lose a lot over the summertime! I remember that in particular I felt that I had to regain some of my hard won math skills after letting then languish over the summer. Summertime homeschooling keeps those math, reading, writing and spelling skills sharp. With my daughter, we will probably start her math book the end of July and just do a couple of lessons a week.
3. Reading new and different books might be a good thing to try over the summertime. Try some new titles or authors. I’m basing our reading off of the Bravewriter Arrow selections.
4. Two words – field trips. Summertime is a great time to work some social studies, geography, history and science into the curriculum in real life!
I especially want to concentrate on Ohio History this year, so I hope to make some special field trips to sites around the state.
5. Summertime homeschooling need not be all drudgery! Learn how to make a pie or sew, paint a room, basic car repairs… all of that is educational and counts as homeschooling.
6. Summertime homeschooling is a great way to pull ahead academically. This can be especially important for high school students who want to CLEP some subjects they studied during the school year and earn some college credit too.
7. It’s a great time to play catch up too. I never felt pressured to be done when everyone else was, because I used the summer months to finish those text books and other projects we were too busy to do during the school year.
My family has done both!!
8. Summertime homeschooling keeps the family from getting too scattered from each other. And now that I have a son 8 hours away, I truly cherish the hours he got to spend with his siblings in the summer.
9. No law says you can’t include the neighbor kids! In fact sometimes the neighbor kids enjoy the read alouds or other homeschooling activities and my kids enjoy having their friends see what their school day is like.
10. Having something to do keeps mom from hearing “I’m bored!” too many times in a day!
10. Dig deeper. So you studied the French Revolution and one of your kids is now fascinated with Marie Antoinette! Now is the time to really dig into her biography and follow all of those rabbit holes that you had to skip over due to time constraints during the school year.
11. Mess. As in, take the messy art project outside. Water colors, chalk, to clay – all if it seems a lot less intimidating outside where everything can get hosed done when we’re done.
12. Science is more fun in the summertime! From planting and growing, to astronomy or simple tools. All of it just seems to lend itself to the long warm days (and nights) of summer.
13. Homeschooling in the summer gives mom some structure too!
14. We do movie day all during the school year, but we can REALLY ramp it up during the summer and have movie night to include dad and even the neighbor kids. It’s a great time to introduce them to films and stories they might not have chosen for themselves and to get some discussions going.
I’m including Netflix in this.
15. For older kids, summertime might be a great time to introduce them to test preparation, how to take tests and test strategies. This is especially important for high schoolers who may not be use to taking a lot of standardized tests.
16. In the laid back summertime it’s a little easier to practice those foreign languages the kids have studied all year. Take one day aside and have Spanish day or Latin day, or just use your American Sign language!
17. Summertime is a great time to try out new Curricula. If Saxon math doesn’t work for one student, maybe trying Seton or Modern Curriculum Press would work better. Try it and see! Last year we gave Switched on Schoolhouse a try. It wasn’t a good fit for us, so I knew I didn’t need to purchase more curricula for the school year.
18. Summer camps and lessons definitely count as homeschooling. Take pictures and make sure to document!
19. Memorial Day, Flag Day, Fourth of July… all great times to set a day aside and talk about our country’s history and heritage.
20. Time to look at the family’s spiritual life and make adjustments. Older kids might be ready to add more bible study time. Maybe the youngest has never heard of Noah and the Arc and doesn’t know how to say the rosary by herself yet. Summertime is a great time to evaluate everyone’s spiritual needs.
