I never thought I’d say this, but we’re doing summer school! All at my children’s request. While the year felt successful, my kids enjoyed it, I enjoyed it… I was looking forward to a break. Summers in the sprinkler, swimming, summer hikes and nature walks, and lemonade. I’ve always been a firm believer in letting children have a more relaxed summer.
Then, last week, my oldest said, “Mom, we haven’t done school in a while.”
I reminded her it was summer, yet she was very excited to have a little school time. So, we’re doing summer school. I’ve been less structured with work and expectations. I’m still making sure we take advantage of the summer activities available to us.
My original plans for the summer were having weekly art lessons and science lessons. Summer seemed like a great time to focus on these lessons, especially as we can work on them outdoors. We have been doing video chats with a cousin while we do the activities and it’s been a lot of fun for everyone. And, of course, we’ve been working on reading regularly.
Child Led
As far as my own goals for my children and educational requirements, I feel my they have passed and even surpassed what I expected for the end of the year. As I am not worried about their education, I was not interested in pushing for summer school, other than enjoyable yet educational extra activities. As a Montessori teacher though, I also believe it is important to “follow the child.”
So, when they asked for new lessons and to start doing school again, of course I said yes!
School, r e l a x e d
Our normal school day had a fairly strict morning routine and schedule. Typically, we had five days a week and about 3-4 hours a day. I had thorough plans of what lessons to give and what areas of study to encourage. Now that we are apparently doing summer school, I am doing much less planning and being far more flexible in how much time we spend on schoolwork.
One of the activities my daughter was most excited about was a workbook of all things! But, it is truly one of the best workbooks I’ve found. Made by Waseca Biomes, it is a portfolio all about the continent of Europe. Starting in the grasslands of Europe, your child gets to imagine they are traveling throughout Europe and visiting each biome. There are a large variety of activities and topics. The workbook matches up well with the European biome cards for elementary.
We’ve been working on this together. The reading level is above where my daughter is anyway, but so far it has been fun and interesting working together on it!
As my kids work on school activities, I feel both surprised and proud. The love of learning is being instilled in my children – they’re working on things simply because they’re curious and want to learn more. What can be better? My youngest has been especially interested in counting, and we’re counting everything. She’s nearly mastered her 1 to 1 correspondence and has been eyeing the sandpaper numbers.
As we reach the middle of summer, what has surprised you about your children’s summer activities? What has not surprised you?
