I am considering continuing our reading and math programs over the summer. Does anyone else do this. I am thinking of continuing the reading program because it is my children's weakest subject and with the math I thought it was good to just keep them in practice. Any pros or cons you have on this idea I would love to hear them. My kids do go to summer camp and it is full day from 9-4 they simply love it. We started a couple of years ago when I had foot surgery and they beg me every year to go back. So, that being said, I love the idea but I am unsure when we would fit it in. Suggestions please....
Is summer camp all summer long? If so, I'd keep it light on the school work as that would be a full day already. When the kids were very young, we were almost "unschooling", so we did the same things all year long by reading and following natural curiosity. When they got older, there was a time or two we took a while longer to finish our year's worth of math and completed it over part of the summer. We have also used the super hot days when we didn't want to go outside to work on school. One year we started school early in July because it was just too hot to do anything else. :lol: Whatever works best for your family will be fine.
I am debating this as well. I was thinking just tone down what we do. I want to do a little more traveling in the summer (husband is more flexible in summer months). To piggy back off original question, if you had to pick two things to keep studying what would they be? Thanks for the help.
DS8 (3rd grade) really behind in Math, so I plan to continue with Math throughout the Summer. We usually keep doing school, but really, like Brooke said, unschooling mixed with fun activities. I usually have hours to make up over the Summer and that's what works for us. Plus the boys don't have 3 months to forget everything. ha! I usually say we school year-round, which is true, but Summer is really light-weight.
I'm thinking that we will probably keep going through the summer, except for the week we're gone on vacation. I will change it up though and do more unit studies and things outside. My dd10 and dd7 need some math catch up time, so we'll definitely keep doing math.
We are keeping going through the summer with reading and maths but just a bit lighter but still every day, last summer we had our ds2 6 weeks early, and the kids used comprehensive curriculum of basic skills, and it was fairly cheap but they enjoyed it.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I know I am probably asking a lot of the kids. But, as you said, on days where they aren't so busy we can keep it going. mumtoo3- Could I ask what comprehensive curriculum you used for reading. That is our weakest subject. Math is thier best subject so, if I do some sheets here and there to keep thier minds fresh for the summer.
We don't do a traditional school year, so we continue during the summer. It's great to be able to have our regular "stuff to do" when the temps are above 100 - no griping about being bored or wanting to spend their lives tethered to the wii or TV. We can keep a more normal rhythm with our activities. I don't know if I'd do it if they were in camp all day. When we did VBS last year, it was only half a day, and that was enough for my kids. While they had a blast, they aren't accustomed to that sort of structure and adding it onto school would have been too much for them. So we just skipped that week (actually, I counted VBS as bible studies). That said...something I didn't anticipate when I started: schooling through the summer gives me a very effective means to regulate the amount of time my kids spend with their public schooled (and public schooled socialized) peers. Not that they don't get to play at all, and not that I wouldn't cut them off when enough is enough. But it's nice to have a built in schedule where I don't have to come in and dictate for reasons my kids don't have the perspective or maturity to understand yet.
Through almost 20 years of homeschooling I almost always continued reading and math in some form throughout the summer. It didn't always take the form of structured curriculum, depending upon the children's age. When they were younger I did things like a few workbook pages, had them count money at the store, practice telling time, etc. As they got older there were things like keeping track of the cost, growth, etc of their steers, money management, learning about a checkbook, cooking with fractions (dividing or multiplying recipes), etc. In high school we pretty much went through the summer with their curriculum, esp. Algebra - that always seemed to be the one we struggled with the most. As for reading, we just kept doing whatever we were, but really emphasized field trips - read literature in preparation, map reading along the way, reading sign posts and reading a lot of information in museums. For example, when we went to a museum or zoo, I'd have the children take turns reading the informational signs. We never just walked through. We read a LOT in the summer and even did book reports. We kept up our group reading aloud and the older children would do some of the reading aloud, although not all. I still wanted them to enjoy being read to. All of my kids love books and reading Basically, I didn't try to advance the skills too much - that wasn't my goal, but I tried to reinforce what they knew and had learned thus far so they didn't "lose" it over the summer.
We school year around. We take breaks when they are needed so none of us get overwhelmed. When the temps get to hot to play outside in the afternoon we change the schedule a bit. The kids go outside and play all morning when it is cool, then we work inside during the heat of the day in the afternoon. Sometimes we cut it back to 4 days a week. Or just do one or two subjects.
Dd is involved in alot of summer activities here. We normally do 2-3 different VBS programs, soccer camp and then swimming. Most of those activities are in July so we do not do much besides our daily reading durring that month. This year we will be done in May so durring June I will be giving dd some achievement tests, reading comprehension sheets, and some placement tests for new curriculum I am planning on using. This way that will be our real vacation month where we can just go and do lots of outside activities. July will pretty much be just reading and possibly a few math lessons, not sure on that. Then mid August we will start back with school work on a more regular schedule. I try to ease it in a bit but before Sept. 1 we are full into the curriculum. The nice thing though in NYS all the hours doing sports or other "educational" things count towards your hours. The official school year starts July 1 so we count it all towards our hours.
We did some work last summer, but light and informal. I think we'll do the same this summer and just keep reinforcing math and reading 2-3 days a week maybe. I would like to keep up with the writing but I'm not going to push it too hard. I think what I'm most excited about is getting some science kits and playing with them just for fun! If we do any vacationing or traveling we don't do school.
The book i mentioned i will try to link, it covers reading, english and maths, it is from preschool up in grade levels, it saved my bacon last summer and i like them to do one book at the end of the year, just to make sure we covered everything, and when they whizz through it they feel so good http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive...3730/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1298792904&sr=8-3 hth
In the summer, we also continue reading and math, though I don't push anything new for math--mostly just maintaining what they have learned so they don't regress a lot from not doing anything all summer. My plan for this summer is to do some school work for one hour each day during the weeks we are not really busy or on vacation. I have my three kids rotate stations. I have one reading with me for about 20 minutes while the other two work on a math worksheet or other type of worksheet. Besides math, I am planning to add a reading comprehension workbook and some handwriting practice because these are our weak areas. If your kids are at camp all day, you could have them work for 30-60 minutes in the evening after dinner on their summer school work. I think it is very helpful to work on weak areas over the summer, so I definitely support your idea!
We are doing year round school. Mine are so young they lose so much over a big break. We did school today (cause they wanted to) But mind you we're unschoolers so we aren't doing a set lesson in each subject every day M-F, etc. We do science almost EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
I find it very demoralizing for the kids and I to do school during the summer. I did however get math computer games for them (math blaster), and we read lots and lots of books of their choice. That's just what has worked for us.
We do half days in the summer. The kids get up early and do reading, math, and some writing. Then we go out and enjoy ourselves the rest of the day. My kids don't complain about this type of schedule because whenever we have the chance to do fun things we generally can because we are always way ahead of where we need to be for the state. For example last year in March their grandparents wanted them to fly to CA to go to Disneyland. No problem. We had worked all last summer, so I gave them a spontaneous two week vacation for some fun and was sure to mention that their summer work made this possible.
Workload We school all the time ... that is there are always work books around, paper and crayons/pen accessible. We believe that just being awake is a learning experience and it all stems from there. Learning is all the time not just 9 to 5 for us so we have busy days we have quieter days....some days we do written stuff other days not. Mondays, Sundays, Thursdays or Tuesdays they don not matter so to speak. I don't think I could be totally autonomous I need to see something by the end of a week to say look what we achieved - but that is for me. I am confident I know that they are learning and at the moment this affords me the time to spend with the baby that they both had and he will benefit from that too...at 7 & 5 mine have their whole lives to learn - right now - my eldest just asked for a rock to put in a salt solution she just made....she doesn't know its science but I will manage to work that conversation in at some point along with a few other worthy messages along the route. They learn what ever they are doing. If you don't want to push them with other stuff as they are busy use every day maths and english - signs, shopping, money, menus for the week, its all valid and valuable.
We school all year long. It is really hot and humid here in the summer. It takes too long to gear back up in Aug/Sept. By schooling all year, we can take breaks when it fits our family schedule, or when the weather is better. We take a couple of weeks off in the spring, before it gets hot. We take off the month of December. If we want to go on vacation, or a special event comes up, we can go, because we have kept school going all year, so we have plenty of days to mark on the official record. Besides, my daughter's brain wants to be fed all the time, not just September through May! Linda Home schooling 1 child for 4 years with Time4Learning~!
SeekingSanity, Our school experience was much like yours. Our school experience included things like field trips (these were mostly in the summer as we live where everything shuts down in the winter), VBS, Sunday School, devotions, educational TV and movies, any new task the children took on and learned - like baking a cake. All "counted" for school in our curriculum. Our weeks often showed over 100 hours of school. Learning is always taking place. It is not confined to books and a classroom. We counted every single learning experience as part of our "curriculum". To me, it isn't about hours or structure. Some structure is necessary for me, so I do have structured days to an extent, but I try not to forget that learning is not just sitting at a desk. In fact, the best learning - the stuff that really sticks - is usually NOT learned at a desk! Of course, sometimes I need to revisit that idea because I get side-tracked
