Thursday, July 31, 2014

summer school.

I'm probably ruining my kids view of school.
We'll see, I guess.

We don't really come to a complete stop in the summer.
My whole parenting philosophy and school philosophy revolve around:
#1 Jesus
#2 Their character
#3 Their love of learning
#4 Real Life

And none of those stop because it's summer, so neither do we.
I think, if I remember right, school historically stopped in the summer because it was harvest time and kids were busy working on their farms.

We don't farm.
Therefore, we don't stop.

I don't care if anyone else stops, but for us, keeping some semblance of routine just makes sense and it's still fun and because, just like all other things home school, we just can, so we do.

(That's actually my favorite answer to give people when they ask why we home school:  
Because we can!)



Now.  That doesn't mean there aren't weeks, sometimes several, that we don't do our normal school day.  I'm not that girl.  (Although sometimes I wish I had more of that girl in me!)

Two weeks of this summer were filled with camps.
Fine Arts Camp, Sports Camp.

But, to me, that is school.
They are learning something we couldn't really do at home and they are loving learning it.

Other weeks are filled with trips to Oregon, visiting family, days at the river or lake, long hikes, late nights, sleeping in, watermelon, bbq's, Six Flags, etc....

But our routine is never far from reach.
We always go back to it.
And most summers we at least slow down and spice up the routine.
Some of this summer's spice are these sweet calendar journals.
A friend (Hi Becky!) told me she did them with her kids last summer and I have been known to copy a time or two so I figured we'd just make it three and get these bad boys goin'.

I hand draw/measure the squares for the months lightly in pencil, they do everything else.  Sometimes we get a whole week behind, sometimes we are right on top of it.  

This and copying the Bible by hand have been two of my favorite things we've done as far as spice goes.
It's teaching them God's goodness and journalling and I think I'd like to be buried with these puppies I love them so much.

Our other routines we keep up:
'cause even a week or two off wipes math facts clean away, I wish my house cleaned it self the way math facts clean themselves when they are ignored!
Language Arts.
There is NO other program for me, I cannot sing this program's praises any louder.
Bible.
It's very cool. We lurv it.
I'd recommend it whether you home school or not, could totally be done just as a family!
We are also continuing to hand write our way through the Bible, each person taking a book.
Art.
We just started these this summer and they are amazesauce.  Highly highly highly recommend.

They are also all in the middle of a 100 books challenge.
100 books = a fun trip with in a days drive.


("Math Mode" = since Merlin was a kitten we'd sit down to do school and he'd jump up on the table and start rubbing his face in everyone else's face.  For some reason it was always during math.
And...he just never stopped.
This is Lydia, doing math, on the deck, Merlin immediate started rubbing his face on hers.  Apparently he doesn't need the table to go into this.
Cats are so weird.)

I do love keeping up with routine.
It helps me, it helps them.
It just fits for us.

I will say though that sometimes, when Merlin goes into "Math Mode"and the sun is shining and you're sitting on the deck, it's very hard to turn mixed numbers into improper fractions!
Just ask Lydia.

ok...off to do summer school!



2 comments:

Beccy said...

So the Phonics Road. We tried and tried and tried and it just did NOT work for us at all. My boys fine motor skills were late and the pacing of skills did not work for them. We finally threw in the towel and moved to All About Spelling this spring and are flying through it making up ground. I kept beating myself up about it and then realized...I have boys! They just think and function so differently. But in theory I loved the curriculum. I love all the posts about what you are doing. Just so you know. Thanks for sharing.

Mache said...

We don't stop either. it is just how we do things and I love it. more importantly the girls love it. So how do the calendar journals work exactly? what do they write every day? I love to copy this one too, sounds like something we would enjoyed at my house.