Summer Plans

We’ve been finished with school for several weeks now.  We’ve spent the majority of this month working on projects around the house.   Now  it’s time to look at the summer.

Ballet:   Both girls will be participating in a 4 week ballet intensive in June.    This will allow them to work on technique and skills as well as building their endurance level. 

In August they will both be participating in a week long, 4 hour a day performance camp.  The camp will end with a production of “Carnival of Animals” in conjunction with our city’s Performing Arts Center.

College:  Olivia will be taking an art class at the local community college.   Additionally, she’s been selected to attend a weeklong, all girl Mechatronics camp.  Mechatronics blends mechanical engineering, electronic control and  systems thinking in the design of products and manufacturing processes.

Basketball:   Lindsey will be attending basketball camp at the local college.   Despite her height (or lack thereof) she’s still got her heart set on being a basketball player.

History:   Olivia will continue to work several days a week with the John Lewis Society in the Indian Village.   Lindsey will be spending a week at day camp with the same program, but working and learning in the early American colonies.

Additionally, we’ll be doing lots of swimming, biking, fishing, playing and just having lots of family fun…because that’s what summer is all about!

Summer Schedule–How We Roll

We only have one more week of this academic year.  Woohooo!   While others are gearing up for a long summer break, I’m working on my summer school plans.  Yes, really, I am that mom.  

Language Arts: 

At the beginning of the 2013-2114 year, I somehow overlooked purchasing the writing curriculum that I typically use.  Then I just kind of kept forgetting about it, until I saw Lindsey’s handwriting getting more and more sloppy.  This summer she will be working her way through the Cursive Writing Skillbook from Abeka.    Olivia will be working through Penmanship Mastery II (she completed Mastery I in 4th grade).

Reading will continue to be a main focus.  Over the summer I’ll be adding a new routine of finding 5 new vocabulary words per chapter and writing the word and definitions out on index cards.  This will help their vocabulary, reading comprehension and handwriting.

Math:

Lindsey will work through several of the Math Mammoth individual worktexts in her grade level.  She will focus mainly on multiplication, division, fractions and geometry.

Olivia will be following the same routine, working with integers, ratios, geometry and percent's.

Science:

The goal here is to do a lot more nature walks.  In addition we’ll be working our way through Evan-Moor’s Planet Earth.   I think this is going to be a lot of fun, and very hands on!  Olivia is also taking a one week robotics class at our local community college.

History:

We plan to continue our study of the Civil War with field trips to Gettysburg, Bull Run, Fredericksburg and a few local small battlefields.  In addition, the girls will also be attending a Civil War Reenactment Camp.   Lindsey is also taking a one week American History class at the local community college.

Physical Education: 

Bike rides, back yard volleyball, swimming at the local pool and long nature walks fall under my “P.E.” heading.  However, it will also include several weeks of ballet intensives and a basketball camp for Lindsey.

Music:

Both girls will continue with their piano lessons over the summer months.  In addition we’ll go to some of the free local concerts and let the girls enjoy (or critique) some of the local talent.

Finally, since Olivia will officially be “middle-school” come fall, I decided to have her spend some time this summer learning about research papers, and actually doing one.   She’ll work through the Christian Light Education, Research Paper 1 worktext, and then I'll let her pick her own topic for a paper.

Lest you think I’m absolutely no fun at all, we’ll only be doing school work three days a week, mostly during the blazing hot part of the day.  We’ve just entered the world of year around schooling (6 weeks on, 1 week off) and it’s worked wonderfully for us over the cold months.  Now we’ll giver it a whirl during the blazing days of summer in the south.   We’ll still have lots of time for sidewalk chalk and chasing fire-flies in the cool of the evening.

Summer School Plans

We finished up our “school year” on April 15.  We’ve been on break for approximately 6 weeks now.   Olivia is taking full advantage of her break, staying in her pajamas most days.   Lindsey on the other hand is dressed and ready for the day early on (way TOO early I might add).    I’ve been catching up on scrapbooking, spring cleaning and gardening. 

Now it’s time to start thinking about summer school.  Yeah, I know it was a dreaded thing when I was in school.  However, our summer school is a lot more fun than “normal” summer school.  So, what’s on our agenda?

Science:  Lots of experiments planned.  I’ve been fortunate to find several chemistry kits at yard sales, the most promising being “Slimey Chemistry”.  Doesn’t that sound too fun?  So we’ll be using those on the back patio.

Crafts:   We’ve accumulated a lot of craft kits this past year.  Birthdays, Christmas, and yard sales have provided us with lots of crafting products, however our schedule didn’t leave a lot of time for actual crafting.   So we’ll be making lots of things.

Reading:   Olivia will be working on her reading comprehension and critical thinking skills with Reading Detective Beginning level.

Lindsey will be reading through the Abeka Reading for Fun Enrichment Library.

Math:   Both girls will be using Abeka math this year. 3rd grade for Olivia and 1st for Lindsey.  Since the first 6 weeks tends to be review, our goal will be to knock out those lessons over the summer.  The purpose is two fold:  1) less loss of learned information, 2) we’ll be starting the “new” stuff when the school year starts.

We’ll be doing lots of trips to the park, and field trips, along with swimming lessons and a week at the local college as well.

I’m working on a couple of ideas for unit studies that would be fun for the summer as well.  Now if I can just flesh them out and make it happen!

What are your summer school plans?