Summer School Details

Last Wednesday I shared this post about summer schooling. I also promised that there'd be more depth to that this week. So, here it is...

What our summer "off" and "on" dates are:
Summer schedule begins June 16th and runs until August 29th.
The week's off are July 14th -18th and August 1st through 8th.
First "official" day of next school year is September 8th.

Lesson time:
Lessons will either take place from 9 AM -11 AM each day or 2:30 PM - 4 PM each day, depending on the weather.

Subjects covered (and how):
Math - through our Complete Curriculum books, worksheets, and other workbooks
Language Arts - through Complete Curriculum books, other workbooks, and reading
History - through read aloud and personal reading along with educational videos if requested
Science - through nature walks and interest led learning
P.E. - swimming, nature walks, hikes, camping, etc

"Formal" lessons will only take place 2-3 times a week. Nature walks, nature journals, and reading will take place nearly daily as will P.E. 90% of materials to be covered in both mathematics and language arts have already been covered and will be reviewed. The last two weeks of our summer schedule we do our test prep and our tests in the back of the Complete Curriculum books. Peanut will have review both of these weeks. We have used these books in this manner (throughout the school year at a relaxed pace and finished through the summer and done the testing in the back) for two years now and they work very well for us.

Special events/plans this summer:
The week of July 14th the campers are all attending a Vacation Bible School at our church each morning. ECJ is a volunteer this year instead of one of the students. 
One week out of this summer Daddy will be taking ECJ with him for a "guys" camp with some friends of ours while the girls and I spend the time on various "female" activities here at home.
There will be at least two more trips to the zoo this summer along with the beginnings of our zoo study which will continue through May of 2015.
We're planning on at least one family camping trip, the date is not yet set and school will continue during it.

Special projects by student:
ECJ - Will finish his Apologia General Science course this summer, read at least two books a week, study both the Civil War and World War 2, one book report a week, and finish his Complete Curriculum book. This is the last year for the Complete Curriculum book for him so he will not receive a new one in the fall. He'll also be joining the library reading club this year.

YCJ - Work on her reading each day, two book reports a month, finish working through Colonial history with Peanut and Mom, finish her Complete Curriculum book, work on her crochet work (her goal), and work through each species of penguin (her goal).

Peanut - Work on her phonics and sight words each day, work through the McGuffey Primer, finish all of her Kindergarten workbooks, learn how to tell time, and practice her oral skills so that she doesn't "lose" her words when she's trying to explain something to us.

No more than two hours will be spent on "formal" lesson days on actually doing lessons even when we're "testing". Chances are we'll do "formal" lessons on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. More than likely we'll do most of our lessons in the afternoons during the hottest part of the day. Reading is expected to happen even during our "off" time each day, half an hour of quiet reading before bed each evening is the norm.

I don't make a lot of lesson plans during the summer. We pretty much just do a page or two each time we're doing lessons until we're finished. The children will also attend a VBS in the evenings the week after their VBS at our church. Daddy and I will be taking the opportunity to go on evening walks for free "date nights" during that week.

As you can see there is nothing too extensive in our plans. ECJ's Apologia is the only course he didn't finish during our regular school year, we're thinking this is mostly due to it being an online course this year instead of with the book. He gets online and tends to want to listen to music and play video games instead of do his work. That will not be repeated in the fall. As a matter of fact until the high school years we'll be limiting how much is actually done on the computers other than things that will reinforce what they're learning from their texts. 

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