We school year-round and take about six weeks off for “summer break” from Memorial Day to the Monday after July 4th. This gives me time to reorganize the school room (which is now our dining room), have our yearly portfolio check and for me to have time to plan and prep for the new school year!

This is the longest break I give my children because I have found we need structure to remain sane. And it is this reason that we haven’t ever totally take a break from all academics. Maybe when they are all older we will actually need that kind of a break, but for now, in this season of schooling a bunch of littles, we’ve always got some kind of structured learning going on around here. We just keep it extremely low-key in the month of June.

Here is my plan for Summer 2017:

Little Bug

CLE Math 100 - Since we didn’t start Level 100 until February of this year, I want Little Bug to continue doing 1 math lesson a day. This will literally take 30 minutes of her time if she chooses to sit down and focus.

Read books - I don’t have to assign books for Little Bug to read. I know she will continue to devour books. My challenge now is providing her books to read. The library has become a good friend.

Sweet Pea

Dry Erase Handwriting books - Sweet Pea needs to continue working on strengthening her fine motor skills for writing her letters and numbers, so she will practice writing her letters and numbers with our Dry Erase Handwriting books.

Together

Bible - We will read The Children’s Book of Virtues and learn our memory verse for June.

CC Memory Work Review - We will review Cycle 2’s Memory Work by listening to the CDs and playing games.

Read Alouds - You just can’t do everything. Sometimes something has to give and, unfortunately, what took the biggest hit in our daily homeschool routine during the phase of adjusting to having 4 children was our Read Aloud time. We still had Read Aloud time - it just wasn’t very consistent there for about 3 months. It got pushed to the very end of the day (right before bedtime) and bedtime routines for 4 children can be quite hectic so many nights we just had to pass it by and try again the next evening. I missed that time because it is one of my favorite things to do with my children! We are back into a good routine now of reading once both boys are down for their afternoon naps, but I always look forward to our summer breaks because it means even more time to Read Aloud!

Like I said, we are keeping it very short and sweet. There will be ample time for planning and playing!

- Elaine