Planning for a Fun Summer Break - Its Not That Hard to Homeschool

Wow, it’s almost time for school to be done for the year and for summer break to begin. For many of you, anyway. Some of us homeschoolers purposely do school year-round; others of us (myself included) somehow end up that way anyway without really trying…

But I don’t want to fritter the summer away this year. Summer break is supposed to be a wonderful time of refreshment, so we are ready to get back into the grind in the fall. And too many of my past summers have come and gone without anything special happening, where each day is much like the rest, and we hang around the house wishing we had something more exciting to do.

This year, I want to be proactive. This year, I want to PLAN OUT a summer schedule or routine, one that has fun activities BUILT IN; so that I don’t have to come up with anything spur of the moment, and we have exciting things to look forward to.

I think the best routines are ones that flow easily, are not complicated, and include lots of down time. Especially during the summer, I do not want to be overscheduled. I want to be able to pull out a book or go online without feeling guilty.

Here’s what I’m thinking: I’m thinking that I pick a couple of days per week on which to schedule a fun activity. The rest of the days can be try-to-finish-last-year’s-schoolwork-before-the-new-year-starts days and/or hang-at-the-house days. I might even think about getting some organizing or cleaning done on those days. The trick will be to get the fun things on the calendar and then work toward them, rather than letting the days slide by with no plan or objective.

Activities I want to fit into our summer break:

Swimming – We have a friend with a pool that we could probably mooch off of occasionally. There is also a community pool that we can swim at for a small fee. I’d like to go once per week, I think. And then I could sit and read in a deck chair ALL afternoon while getting a crazy good tan. Works for me!

Library visits – We run out of reading material quickly over the summer. During the year we schedule our library visits to coincide with trips into town for church activities, but in summer those activities go away. So I will need to make an effort to get us to the library. Maybe we can go to the one that is smaller but closer – we haven’t been there in awhile.

At least one visit to the local theme park – In past years we have made a Christmas present out of buying season passes to this park, and we have gone MANY times per year. This year, though, the budget did not stretch that far. But we miss it, and they’ve got new rides open this year, so I think we have to make sure to go at least once.

Another visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead – when we were there last time, our youngest was too young to remember anything or to have read the books. Now she has read them all and will enjoy seeing where Laura wrote.

A museum or two (or three) – I have NOT made an effort to see the local museums — any of them! I want to research which would be best to go to and make a point of getting there.

Hiking – there are many nice trails around here. There is no reason for us to stay cooped up inside when we could be enjoying the scenic vistas that abound in this area.

Camping — we bought a wonderful 10-person tent a couple years ago. I want to use it again! We don’t generally do vacations (I’m always amazed that other families can save up enough money to stay in hotels and eat out for a week or two, not to mention all the admittance fees to touristy places); but we can camp over a weekend. I LOVE camping.

So, I figure there are 14 weeks for summer break, and I want to schedule something fun to do twice each week. If once per week is swimming, and then every other week we go to the library, that leaves 7 more fun activity days to plan. The theme park makes the first one, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead makes the second one, 2 -3 museums account for 2-3 more, and the rest could be hiking days. And one weekend can be our camping getaway.

Now all I need to do is get out the calendar and start penciling stuff in!! I’m looking forward to an enjoyable summer full of fun family times! ?

What are your plans for this summer?

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