Summer of Fun, Work, Service and Learning

It's SUMMER...and I'm so grateful for it. It's been such a busy, crazy last few weeks with band concerts, violin concerts, dance reviews, preschool parties, play performances etc. etc. It's been wonderful to see all that the kids have learned and done and now I'm ready for SUMMER!


I LOVE summer so much. I love everything about it but most of all I LOVE that I get to have my kids home with me and we get to do lots of stuff together. We started our first day of summer out with a PJ party. Which pretty much means we were very lazy and did whatever we wanted. It was a nice break from the routine we have been on through the school year. I wanted my kids to have one day to do whatever they wanted before the summer events I've planned begin.


This summer is going to be the summer of George(ha ha for all of you Seinfeld viewers) not really it's going to be the summer of FUN, WORK, SERVICE and LEARNING. Those are my goals and I've been working hard and planning out how all of that is going to happen. This is what I've come up with. I'm so glad I didn't make any permanent marks on the magnet board so that I can change it up when I need to. This is our new summer board.


Here is the schedule of events....



Everyday the kids have jobs to do. Some they do everyday along with one job that rotates. This summer I really want my kids to learn how to clean an area or room....from start to finish. So I've come up with some "area's" that they will learn to clean. I made these pouches that holds their 5 areas for the week. Each morning they will pick a card and clean that area. When it's done they will put it in the done pouch. At the end of the week all of the cards should be in the done pouch. If not then there will be a consequence which will most likely be more work to do. Hopefully we don't have to cross that step. We will not be having Saturday jobs during the summer which my kids are so excited about. All of our usual Saturday jobs will be covered by the jobs during the week. That will give us a whole day to do other things. Here are the pouches and cards.

Their daily jobs consist of reading, cleaning room, writing in journal, practicing instrument, doing the "to do" job, and getting some physical exercise. Tyler and Emily will rotate between the 10 "to do" jobs each week. Hopefully the both of them will learn all 10 areas and the goal is that our house will be clean each week. I'm loving that!

They can not play at 1pm until all their jobs are done. If they didn't get them done in the morning then they will be doing them in the afternoon. Once they have completed everything each day then they can play and do whatever they want.

On our daily schedule of events I've designated a "speciality day." During that time we will be focusing on 4 different things. Monday is Library day, Tuesday is Goal day(working on the 2010 goals the kids made in January) Wednesday is Service day and Thursday is Cooking day( I really want my kids to learn to cook. I think it is such an important thing to learn and hopefully it will be great for me in the future so they can do more of it :). From 11am-12pm we will be doing these different events. I have made up my own planner pages so that each night I can plan out each event so that it actually happens. Along with these different event days I'm going to plan one fun activity to do sometime during the day. I have made a long list of ideas that I will refer from. Most are just simple little things that we can do together and hopefully enjoy some FUN with each other this summer.

Part of the learning goal for the summer is reading. I sat down with the kids a few weeks ago and this is what we came up with. A certain amount of pages read = a sticker. 5 stickers = a fun activity of their choice. We came up with the amount of pages depending upon their reading level. Hopefully it will motivate them to read. One of their daily jobs is to read at least 30 minutes.

Another of their Daily jobs is to write in their journal for 5 minutes. Emily and I made journals that stick to the magnet board for her and Hayley. In their journal I want them to focus on the positive things that are happening in their life....the good stuff and while they are writing I want them to really work on their spelling and penmanship. Hayley will spend some time doing summer school with me, Tyler and Emily to help her get ready for kindergarten. Here are the Journals we made. Tyler didn't want one.
I know things will come up and I will have to be flexible. I've already discovered that this week but at least I have a game plan and hopefully the kids will have a summer of FUN, WORK, SERVICE and LEARNING. That is my goal!