School-like schedule during the summer?

Today was my twins' last day of school. I've always gone to school in the cold, snowy north so I was surprised that apparently Florida doesn't build in two weeks for snow days. :80:

Anywho, I'm thinking about doing a very light school like schedule over the summer and was looking for some pointers or experiences. I'm thinking about an hour of reading time, an hour of math and an hour of handwriting. The last two maybe broken up into two half hour periods. So like an hour of reading in the morning, followed by a half hour of math and a half hour of handwriting. Maybe a half hour break after reading, then repeat the math and handwriting in the afternoon. Reading should be easy as they both love to read.

I'm hoping this will help them keep their skills over the summer and help our days to not be so crazy bored and filled with video games!

 

I found that after mine went to "real" school, they really didn't like/enjoy it when I tried to do obvious school-type work with them. I did a homeschool of sorts for preschool which worked well. They just really preferred how they learned at school to homeschooling/enrichment.

I find that if I want them to learn something, I tend to have to not be obvious about it and not picky about the subject. For example, right now the kids somehow ended up listening to an audiobook of the Percy Jackson series that happened to land in my car's cd player. (Previously I had thought that series would be interesting for the kids and they claimed it looked boring). After that first audiobook, they decided to read more and now we have full-scale mythology discussions going with myth reading and some interesting discussions. It might not be as practical as math, but they are learning and engaging their brains. We also have some other books like "Oh Yuck, the Encyclopedia of Everything Gross" that came home from the library last time.

You might look into your local libraries and museums. Our library is running a summer reading program with free books as prizes. They also are running art/craft classes, tech classes, lego clubs, and special programs. The first one they're advertising is a rocket program from the space museum. They also usually have the local ballet come to the park. Usually there's an animal program in there somewhere.

Marissa

 

My kids also like the break from school over the summer. I have been fortunate in that I have worked at day camps since they were 4, and they attend camp. They are active all day long and really don't get bored. If you feel like you really need to do school, I would advise you do something like Marissa suggested.

 

I don't really have a comment on doing school at home for summer. But, since I homeschool I could probably offer some suggestions. An hour of math and writing is a very, very long time. When you only have 2 children to work with getting through daily work goes extremely fast. At 7 my boys entire school day was between an hour to an hour and a half for all subjects. Reading is a bit different because you can either give them a time schedule or so many pages to read. I try to keep a similar schedule like the school system here. We typically end about a month earlier. I do however continue with math and make them read. This year we will also be doing science. It's fun and we can incorporate both reading and math while doing experiments. But we really relax and just have fun. I don't ever want them to hate learning or hate school. They still sleep in and play most of the day.

You know I just thought of something else, I did an Olympic unit study during the last summer Olympics with my older boys and am going to do another one this summer with all 4 boys. You could do something similar with any subject that they find interesting. It's not necessarily math related, but you could definitely incorporate writing and reading. I also do a lap book along with the unit. It allows them to use their crafty side.

Just some ideas. Everyone is so different in their goals for their own families. I know some families that don't take any breaks over summer.

 

I have younger kids, so I may be talking out of my butt, but I like the idea of building school concepts into fun activities. Math is all around us! Build a fort using math concepts, gardening can be reading, handwriting, and science (drawings of how the plants change with descriptions, reading about the different types of plants), cooking is math and science, weekly library trips for reading (does your library have summer programs?), etc.

I love the idea about doing something for the Olympics! Nini can you share what you did last time?

 

This is what I did with the big boys 4 years ago, just a "Bejing" version. http://www.unitstudy.com/Olympics_Study.html You can take and leave what you want with this. I loved the links provided and we bought some magazines and books to supplement. We also utilized the free lap booking activities. You can preview the unit to give you an idea of what one of Bennett's Unit studies contain. We learned about all the different sports and some on the culture. It was enough fun that my 12 year old wants to do it again. My guys are sports orientated so this is right up their alley.

 

My girls will be going back to school 1/2 starting in the morning 4 days a week for a month. We have a voluntary reinforcement summer school. They do fun stuff and work on things they maybe having issues with and start working on getting ahead for next year if they are doing well

 

Kate, we do a light school schedule because I just know from experience how much is lost over the summer. Nothing intensive, but they love school right now, so I'm taking advantage of it while I still can. We go out and play in the morning to take advantage of some outside time before it gets too darn hot. Then after lunch we do some little things....15 - 30 minutes of reading, 15 - 30 minutes of math, then I have bought the home school edition of Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish and we're ALL going to be learning some Spanish this summer (don't know if it will work, but they have been begging to learn and so we are). They also have been really intrigued by Presidents of the US, so we are going to learn about Presidents this summer. That's about as intensive as I get. If they want to do more I will, but if they are particularly restless, then I might shorten the time so it doesn't make them feel like they are in school. My girls will go crazy if I don't have some sort of schedule for them, and frankly so do I. I find that once we do school stuff they play better afterwards and get along better.

 

We don't do anything traditional, but they each do 25 addition & 25 subtraction on their Itouch a day, just to keep the facts fresh. We write letters to family members. It keeps their handwriting up, and they like to check the mail for me .

Other than that, if they find something interesting, I use our extra time to learn more about it. Otherwise, they play outside or swim. Their sports (gymnastics & karate) are year-round, so that helps keep them mentally & physically challenged, too.

 

I'm going to have to take some notes here! Thank you all for the great advice.

I have looked into day camps, but they are so pricey. Times two! And most of them are just in the mornings, so why pay all that money ya know? I'm going to let them do some, though.

One of the twins did poorly in math, so I want to try and work with him over the summer.