Summer and Homeschool

Our summer plan changes every year, but one constant is that my boy needs routine and structure. This year, I gave him a couple of weeks off, and now we’ve rolled into what I call “School Light.” We’re maintaining basic skills without dumping on a bunch of work.

Bible

Peck has several devotion books geared toward children and reads a passage daily.

Math

I’m a firm believer that a child need a solid foundation in math. Many careers and aspects of adult life require mathematics. I’d rather Peck have a firm grasp of the subject than rush him into a new discipline because he’s reached a certain age. He could use a little more practice with multiplication fact recall, so we’re working through Math-U-See’s Aim (Accelerated Individualized Mastery) program. We’ve just begun, so I can’t rate the program overall. I will when we finish 🙂

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Reading

I’ve mentioned before that Peck reads well, but doesn’t pursue it. However, reading is important for too many reasons to let it slide over the summer. Peck sets a timer for twenty minutes and reads whatever he chooses, but it must be a book or magazine. He tried to trick me once by reading his Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

Journal

Peck had some mild delays in handwriting, and he’s left-handed. He still needs refining in print and cursive. This summer, I decided to incorporate journaling. First, he writes three sentences about whatever he chooses. The next day, I review it with him, pointing out handwriting issues and misspelling. He writes the corrected letters and words three times. Day three, he rewrites the sentences in cursive. Finally, we repeat the review and correction process with cursive. Wash, rinse, repeat.

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Exercise

It gets pretty hot down here in the South. So, Peck can’t always play outside. When that happens, he does exercise videos on YouTube. There’s some cool ones for kids. His latest infatuation is Fortnite dances. He’ll dance along with the videos for thirty minutes at a time. I don’t care what he does as long as he’s moving.

Stem

Right now, we’re working through Engineer Academy from Kane Miller EDC Publishing (We bought it from Usborne). It’s the second one we’ve done in the Academy series, and Peck loves them. Yesterday, he folded and tested paper airplanes.

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School Light sounds like a lot when I write it all out, but Peck gets done fairly quickly, even the AIM program is laid back. I hope this gives you some ideas about how to combine homeschool and summer. Have a great week!