Well it is that time a year when
school comes to a close and we enter Summer Break! I don’t know about you but the last few weeks
of school seem to both breeze by and linger on at the same time. What do I mean well, it is hard to believe my
kids only have two more weeks of school left, our school year ends the Friday
before Memorial Day Weekend.
I know these last weeks will
breeze by in once sense but at the same time, I can also feel like they
linger. I run out of ideas to change up
the school lunch box and even the kids are tired of peanut butter and jelly and
everything else they have taken for lunch all year long. Thankfully my kids wear school uniforms or I
can imagine most parents and kids feel they don’t know what to wear or dread
laying out clothes for the last few weeks of school.
Here are some thoughts to think
on and plan on as we come to the end of the school year.
Start now writing out a Summer
Checklist, both a fun Summer Bucket List and also a checklist for chores and
keeping up on academics during the summer break. Don’t wait until summer starts to plan it out
or let summer go by only to end up with a lot of “I wish we would have”, and
the such because just like the school year breezes by so does Summer. I remember when I was in school we had an
entire three month summer break and did not return until after Labor Day
Weekend in September now days most summer breaks are much shorter, my boys go
back to school in August, they really only have 11 weeks off of school which
goes by quick.
At the end of a school year it is
a great time to celebrate with your kids all the accomplishments they have
made. What they have learned, how they
have grown, friendships made. As the
weeks come to a close sit at the dinner table and discuss those things or as
you tuck them in bed remind them how much they have grown and how proud you are
of them.
I know for my kindergartner, he
is reading really well now, entered kindergarten knowing basic sight words and
sounds, but now he can read an entire book all on his own. He can create sentences from his sight word
list and write them out on his own. That
is huge, he has become quite the social butterfly. As the middle child he was a little shy at
the beginning of the school year not any more, he has made new friends and
blossomed quite a bit.
My 2nd grader now
knows multiplication all from 1-12’s, he writes beautifully in cursive and has
a love of reading as well. These are all
things to remind them and encourage them with how they have grown this past
year. Also a good reminder to discuss
things you want to work on during summer break so you don’t get rusty when it
is time to go back to school.
A really great tool to stay up on
math that I have used before is a website called TenMarks, you can register
your child by grade, TenMarks will have it personalized to your student by a diagnostic
assessment. Based on the results, a personalized
curriculum is created. Each curriculum
reviews past concepts and introduces future ones. Hints provide problem solving approaches. Videos provide instruction to refresh concepts. Here is a link for more information and to
register: https://www.tenmarks.com/summermath.
I know it is easy during summer
to stay up later and get up later as well, but if you discuss this as a family beforehand
than everyone is on the same page and can contribute to having a fun,
successful summer break and know what is expected of them. With younger kids in my house, we don’t stay
up super late during summer, they pretty much stick to their same bed time
routine. They have a few days in the week
where instead of being in bed by 8:30 they are in bed at 9 which thankfully at
their young age they are super excited about, but you should have a family plan
to help both the nights and mornings go easier for you. My boys are not big on sleeping in, they
never have been, so even during summer break they really don’t sleep in, but we
discuss, things like screen time on the computer, and tablets, making their bed
each morning and helping with breakfast, etc.
If you stay home all day with
your children, a great idea is to write out a menu plan for breakfast, lunch
and dinner. I already menu plan our
dinners, but do not typically menu plan the other two meals, but with summer
break, I will menu plan all meals. It
makes it easier on me to keep a variety of meals as well as on the kids so they
know what they are eating. It also helps
keep snacking to a minimum, I don’t know about your house but my boys love to
snack and if I let them will snack all day.
I like to write out, Breakfast, Morning Snack, Lunch, Afternoon Snack,
and Dinner so they don’t fill up on snacks throughout the day and end up
skimping on dinner.
You can Google Summer Bucket List
and there are a ton of lists on Pinterest with fun ideas, this is great to
discuss with your kids and find out what they dream of doing this summer. With more time together as a family during
summer break what adventures will you conquer?
What memories will you create?
Kids grow way to fast, don’t take for granted a single day, even from
the simplest of days with a picnic lunch in the backyard and running through
the sprinklers. Taking fun summer
vacations are great, but I know everyone cannot do that every year, whether it
is because you work and do not have the vacation time, have not budgeted for a
summer vacation or timing, for example we have a new baby due in July, so being
nine months pregnant and having a newborn we do not have a huge trip planned
for this summer break.
I find that kids ultimately want
time with you, even if it is just hanging out in the backyard with them,
watching them ride their bikes, or jump on the trampoline and show you their
new moves. Summer Bucket List’s don’t
have to be grand and expensive. You can
visit new parks in your local town, take swim lessons, camp out in your backyard,
get your kids involved in cooking with you and learning new things that with
busier schedules you don’t always make the time to show them. It really is about quality time
together. I also have observed when you
have a plan even if the plan is to build a fort in the living room and have a
backyard picnic, it will cut down on the dreaded words “I’m bored”, “There is
nothing to do”, etc. I find with my boys
there are less fights and grumbling when they don’t enter that bored stage and
again it does not have to be big expensive things to do all summer, but
variety. For example last year for our
Monday through Friday schedule, we had a day we went to our local water-park, we
had a day we went to movie theater for the Summer Kids Movie Program, we had a
day we visited the library, a day we visited a new park and then a day
scheduled to stay home. Then we made
adjustments as needed, if we had a friend or cousin spending the day with us or
any other plans that we made, but having a basic plan of attack or your week,
keeps the entire family on the same page, can be less stressful and makes room
to create memories together instead of wondering where the summer went.
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