Did you know that some families are only a few weeks away from the start of the new school year? Let that sink in for a minute. Summer is quickly going away.
There’s a part of me that’s really excited to get back to structured learning. I walk into stores that have started putting out their big displays of school supplies, and I get a little bit giddy over new notebooks and fresh crayons and restocking our gluestick supply for pennies instead of dollars.
And my kids have been starting to ask for more specific activities to do as well. They’ve moved beyond just running wild and free for days on end and they’re ready to get back into learning.
This excitement is good, and it’s something we can build on as we get closer to school starting, but I don’t want to give up summer just yet.
photo credit from pixabay.com
1) Summer gives the kids a break to learn through free play and real life rather than structured classroom learning. I talked about this a little bit in this post, but the idea is simple. Kids can learn just as much from real life as they can from sitting at a table doing math worksheets. From conversations with the nice old lady at the grocery store to counting out change at the family garage sale to working in the garden, there are plenty of opportunities for learning as a part of everyday life.
2) Summer gives me a break from constant planning, teaching, and leading activities. We still have some specific learning things we do during the summer, like the Read The World Book Club, workbooks and coloring pages, and occasional craft projects and activities (like the cloud dough pictured above), but it’s a much more relaxed and “as we get to it” pace than specific things planned every day.
3) Summer gives us all a chance to really dig into personal projects. I’ve been working on this blog, as well as a few books behind the scenes. Jonah has taken off reading and is now reading chapter books from the library. We’ve all been working in our garden. One day the boys saw me checking the weather map, and they ended up spending a couple hours drawing a map, and making a radar storm out of Legos. Another time they decided to build every single Lego pack that they own over the course of a few days. These are things we don’t necessarily have time (or table space!) to do during the school year, but in summer? Totally cool.
4) Summer gives us time to think about what worked and what didn’t work last year, as well as plan things for next year. I like having a detailed plan for the whole year, and then doing a weekly plan based on where we actually are in our lessons. But that detailed plan takes me at least a week of concentrated effort to put together, which is something I don’t have time for during the regular school year. And I can’t do that until I’ve evaluated what went well and we should keep doing, and what we need to change or drop from our schedule.
photo credit from pixabay.com
What has summer break allowed your family to do?
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