How to Make a Summer Learning & Fun Plan (Part One)

Summer's almost here!

 Our summer starts officially on Friday, as school ends on Thursday for Dirty D.  If you're like me, you know all about the 'summer slide', where kids lose about 30% of what they learn during the summer off months.  I don't want Princess or Dirty D to be a part of that statistic, so every summer I try to come up with some sort of fun and educational summer camp that we can do at home.  There are plenty of sites out there that offer up full plans and downloadable curriculum for this sort of thing, and they do have some really excellent ideas, but my kids don't often enjoy the themes, or they subscribe to a one-size-fits-all set up that doesn't work very well for my three, who vary in age quite a bit.

Over the past week or so, the kids and I have been brainstorming our summer plan:  our bucket list, the things we would like to learn about (for our themes) and some challenges we would like to try.  Then I got all the lists together and got on the internet so I can put together the beginnings of our summer plan.  As I started I came up with a ten step process that can help set up your summer plan.  So here is part one, and stay tuned for part two!  (Just a note, these are in no particular order!) 

1.  Pick subjects/themes your children are interested in.

An sampling of my kids chosen themes, with Princess' picks in red and Dirty D's in blue.

Dirty D is currently big into dinosaurs.  He suddenly loves all the dinosaur books he's had in his bookshelf since he was a toddler.  He plays educational dino games on the computer.  He is constantly talking about carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores.  So of course one of the things he really wants to learn about this summer is dinosaurs.  Princess, who is eleven, is interested in learning more about ancient Egypt.  She wants to learn more about the many gods and the pharaohs, and daily life back then.

You can have your kids take five minutes to list several things they want to learn about, and you can pick a few from each list to make into each week's 'theme'.  Every child will get time to explore their favorite things in more detail, and the siblings will have the opportunity to either discover a new interest, or show their sib(s) that they care and value each other by genuinely being actively engaged in learning about their latest interest du jour.

2.  Make the bulk of your learning activities hands on.

Dirty D's duct tape boat that he made at a science camp I taught.

 

Children spend so much of their lives in school, sitting behind a desk, doing worksheets and practicing for testing.  Summer is a vacation from school in that sense.  So, unless your child just loves worksheets, keep them to a minimum during your summer learning adventure.  It's been my experience that even the ones who love worksheets and burn thru a workbook in a few days will easily get burnt out.  My aim this summer is 85% fun hands on activities to about 15% worksheet/workbook stuff.  Of course you can tweak the amounts for what is best for your family.

There are so many awesome resources and hands on activity ideas for every subject online and at the library, all it takes is 10-20 minutes to find a bunch of activities that are perfect for hands on learning.  My favorite site to find these kinds of things is Pinterest, because so many of the pins are collections of activities based on themes or subjects.  Just pick your subject, add 'for kids' and you can get literally hundreds of fresh, fun ideas that you can easily do at home with your children.  Our worksheets are going to be focused on the skills each child's teacher suggests they get extra practice with, mostly mathematics.

3.  Don't be too structured.

There's no time limit on learning!

 It's definitely true that children thrive on structure, but your summer should never be planned to the minute. They have their days planned that way at school, remember?  Instead, just have a general idea of what time of day you'd like to start an activity, like after morning chores or after lunch.  If you over schedule or structure everything, you will only set up yourself for disappointment.  Something won't get finished to your liking, your kids will not be as excited, and you could lose the opportunity for the richest learning experiences, which leads me to...

4.  Leave room for extensions.

You're making a few fossils with your children when one of them wants to make a rubbing of their completed fossil.  The kids have successfully 'wrapped' an action figure mummy, and want to make a diorama of a pharaohs burial site.  These may not be planned activities, but they are extremely valuable.  They open up new learning experiences, that lead to deeper knowledge.  They learn that rubbings don't always show detail as well as the fossils.  They learn the difference between 2D and 3D objects.  They learn about the many things that Pharaohs were buried with.  All these unplanned extension activities offer your children a new way to get engaged in learning about their subject matter.

 5.  Pick a subject that can include themes for every week of summer.

This is a subject that you choose, that you would like to share the experience of learning about with your kids.  This is something separate from the themes that your kids picked, it's more an all-encompassing subject.  After you choose your subject, you can have your children offer feedback to narrow down what you will learn regarding the subject every week.  This gives the children an opportunity to watch your excitement about learning, which will teach them that learning is a life long adventure.  That will encourage them to get even more excited about learning.

As an example, this summer, we are doing geography daily, separate from our daily activities for the themes that my kids chose.  After I decided I'd like to learn a little more about some different countries, I gave my kids a world atlas and asked them to pick out 11 countries they would like to learn a little about (we have eleven full weeks of summer break).  Then I made these cute little passports from free printables I found online.  I will include a post about our Passport to The World and how we will do it in an upcoming post.

Stay Tuned for Part Two!! :)