I like a break as much as I did when I was in middle school on the last day of school, but I also had a baby this year which means a few subjects got pushed to the wayside and a couple subjects we didn't finish.
Yes, I know, I can hear you fellow homeschool moms mumbling, "You don't have to finish. Just pick back up where you left off next school year." I get it! I really do. But I know that just will make me feel pressure to finish a whole year's worth and then some next year.
So, we are doing some homeschooling this summer but definitely not our full load. Plus, we never stop reading which is the bulk of our homeschooling during the school year anyway, so the learning truly never ends. When homeschooling is a lifestyle for your family, where does the school end and life begin? It just doesn't.
We are going with the same approach I've talked about before - we will be doing what I call a Summer Scholé. This can mean different things for different families, but what it means for us is that we are doing some learning but far from our normal homeschool load. When some families continue with workbooks over the summer to retain knowledge, I'm looking at it more as building on to what we are learning, tying up some loose ends, and just continuing to love wondering about the world around us.
Here are the subjects we will continue over the summer:
MATH
Because I had a baby right at the beginning of the year, we got a bit behind on math. We have about 15 lessons left in our The Good and the Beautiful Math 4 and 1 books that I want us to finish. We will likely do about 4 a week and knock them out in June and then they will still get over two months of a break from math which my 10 year old will especially enjoy! 🤣
LANGUAGE ARTS
While I did follow a language arts curriculum with my 10 year old (we did Learning Language Arts through Literature), we did most of it and will not be finishing it as many parts I decided to skip because it didn't align with Charlotte Mason's methods and we are doing something completely different next year. You can read about our curriculum choices for next school year here. So, she will not be continuing language arts over the summer beyond writing letters to a friend in another state and some family members.
My 7 year old, however, will be going into 2nd grade and she has just 2.5 books of Explode the Code left. The second half of the school year, reading has just clicked for her and she is flying through the books. I don't want her to lose momentum, so she will continue doing about 3 pages a day of Explode the Code 3ish times a week and will likely finish the books by September or soon after. They only take her 5-10 minutes and she enjoys doing them, so it won't be a whole lot for her.
READ ALOUDS
The one thing we never take a break from is reading together! We will continue reading chapter books as an entire family. We finished the Narnia series at the beginning of May and started reading The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois and have absolutely LOVED it. We will be done with it shortly and will just pick a different chapter book as we continue on through the summer.
INDEPENDENT READING
Another thing we won't ever stop doing is reading on our own. Now that my two older daughters are able to read independently, they have about 20 minutes of independent reading time most weekdays during our quiet time in the afternoon. I normally have a basket of books for them to choose from for this reading time during the day and they can read their own choices any other time of day. But, for the summer I think I'll just let them choose their own books they want to read. They choose great books too. I just have a list of books (a lot are Ambleside Online suggestions) I want them to read that they may not choose on their own, but I will save those for the school year.
SCIENCE
Science is the main subject we just didn't get to as much as I wanted during the school year. I also knew in the back of my mind that I would be releasing a botany study that we would want to do over the summer. I did end up releasing Buds, Blooms & Bees recently and we have started it the last couple weeks together. I knew we wouldn't want to study most of botany over the school year because here in Minnesota, most of the school year has snow and evergreens to observe and that's about it. So, studying it over the summer when we can be out observing everything we learn is ideal. So, we will continue 2-4 lessons a week, just depending on the week, and the rest we will finish in the school year. This easily can count as a year-long science curriculum with how much they will be learning and will make up for the science we didn't complete this school year.
PICTURE BOOKS
Every day, we read picture books during our afternoon snack, so we plan to continue this along with any other time of day this makes sense. My 10 year old still enjoys picture books and I definitely don't want to drop reading them any time soon with my 4 year old and 5 month old baby! So, we will continue reading great picture books together every day!
NATURE JOURNALING
Like I said earlier, Minnesota doesn't lend itself to nature journaling very easily in the winter. We can definitely still observe lots happening outside, but its nowhere near the wealth of study as it is during the warmer months. So, we will continue drawing in our nature journals every week and learning about what we are observing outside. It's been amazing that my kids have naturally been doing this. They will run inside and grab their nature journals when they see something interesting in nature while playing outside.
MISCELLANEOUS
Lastly, I'm a big believer that learning is constantly happening all around us! My kids will be learning SO much as we do life together both inside the home and outside. Inside the home they will continue to read the Bible, clean, cook, help water and take care of our flowers outside, learn through play, resolve conflicts together, do art projects, and so much more. Outside the home, we often will meet up with friends where they will be socializing. We will go to museums, gardens, playgrounds, festivals, and more where learning will continue. Our summers are full of SO much learning but it's less formal than it is in the school year. I'm so excited to get out exploring with them more than we are able to during the school year. Learning truly is happening all the time, you just may not recognize it!
Those are our plans for the summer! Nothing crazy, lots of time for fun, tons of time spent outside, and lots of memories made!