Summer School 2015 (Between 1st & 2nd Grades and Preschool & K4)

I’ve discovered that long breaks aren’t really beneficial for us when it comes to school work. So our strategy for this summer will be a bit different. I don’t want to necessarily do a year-round school schedule – planning a more traditional school year with the breaks we need works for us. Continuing in the summer is going to be helpful for us, but I want to do something besides what we normally do throughout the year.

I don’t want to be a total stick in the mud, and I need a break, too. So we’ll take a few shorter breaks during the summer, and do our “summer school” schedule the rest of the time.

Summer Vacation: I will require a minimum of 30 minutes of reading each weekday, even when we’re on summer vacation. Caedmon will read (hopefully independently a lot) and Honor will either look at books herself or we’ll do read-alouds. Both kids will also be required to draw/color/do something creative each day.

Summer School, Caedmon: The 30 minute/day reading requirement will continue to apply.

We’re also going to begin a vocabulary program called English From the Roots Up. It’s meant for older kids, but Caedmon has an interest in Greek and Latin, and we won’t start formal Latin studies until 3^rd grade. I thought this might be a good way to introduce some Greek and Latin while at the same time, maybe help him with vocabulary and spelling. I’m adapting it for his age and skill, so I’ll let you know how that goes for us.

After reading and vocabulary, Caedmon will have a few things to choose from. He’ll choose one thing from Category 1 and one thing from Category 2.

Category 1: Explode the Code or Building Thinking Skills

Category 2: Kahn Academy (math, online) or Keyboarding Without Tears

I think those options will give us plenty of variety and keep us from getting bogged down in the work. It also won’t take terribly long.

Summer School, Honor: I had originally planned to start “school” with Honor in the fall, which would be her K4 year. So I bought a few things at a curriculum sale this past spring with that in mind. And then she insisted that she needed to start school now. So we did. And she loves it. Her thinking and reasoning skills are outstanding, but her writing skills aren’t quite there yet. (She just turned 4 – so she’s developmentally appropriate with writing.) So we’ll continue adapting the work so she can work at her own pace and worry about writing skills a little later.

Aside from 30 minutes of book time, Honor will have computer/iPad time for phonics and reading type sites/apps. She’ll also continue to work through Building Thinking Skills and Mathematical Reasoning.

Book Study: We will be traveling some this summer, and that’s a great time for a book study. Our library has a great selection of audio books, and we’ll choose something classic that’s age appropriate. (Last year, we did The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.) I’ll browse Pinterest to see what study aids I can come up with, and we’ll do some activities to go along with the book and Caedmon will do a Book Report like we do throughout the school year. (It’s a one-page sheet – very simple.)

I’ll evaluate at the end of the summer and let you know how it goes!