Summer School

I tried.

I really, really tried.

This was going to be our first Summer Break.  No school, no lesson plans, no worksheets.  But y'all, life changes and sometimes life changes a lot in a short amount of time.  We needed some structure.  Not a ton, just a little to keep us moving forward.

I'm keeping it very light and informal.

For Josie, I put together a folder of things I felt she could use a little extra practice at.  The front of her folder has her Summer Reading tracker, followed by a log of the books that she has finished.

 

After that I printed out the 1st grade math workbooks from Mathletics.  Each workbook focuses on a different skill and is about 30-50 pages.  She has to do at least one page, but can do as many as she wants in a day.  When she finishes a workbook, she gets a treat or prize then starts the next workbook.  I'm sticking other things that I want her to work on in the front pocket of the folder.  Sometimes it's a handwriting page, sometimes a word puzzle, or maybe a piece of paper to write her Daddy a letter.

She knows that, at some point during the day, she needs to get her folder to do her "homework" and read a chapter from one of her books out loud to me.

This is working so well for her that I'm revamping our entire workbox system for next year.

The independence factor is huge with her.  She loves picking how much she is going to do and I've been impressed that, more times than not, she decides to do more than the minimum one page.  I've seen her handwriting and reading skills go through the roof and we've only been doing this for a few of weeks.

There were a few areas I felt like she was a bit behind in when we stopped for Summer Break.  Now I'm confident that she will be better than fine when we hit the 2nd grade in the Fall.

That's a good feeling.  For both of us.

Gabe just wasn't interested in Summer Break.

Heck, he had just started getting to do real school in May.  For him we are continuing to work through his Mother Goose Time boxes, reading lots of stories, and playing with a few apps I found for him.  So far ixl.com and Teach Me Toddler have been our favorites as far as skills taught and tracking ability for me to see how he's doing when I'm not sitting with him.

He's a funny little dude.  He's for sure going to be the class clown next year!

I've learned that, at least during this season of life, we just aren't Summer Break people.

School is so much a part of our daily lives that it feels weird to not have any going on for three months. I think I'm accepting that what works best for us is multiple week long breaks during the year with school continuing the rest of the time.

And when I get to see the light bulbs flipping on, there's no wonder why I don't want to stop!