Our Summer Learning Plans

We truly have figured out that schooling year round works out really well for us.  Our entire family thrives on a bit of structure and with homeschooling we have really learned that we enjoy exploring and learning together!  Even still, we plan to change up our formalized lessons a bit this summer and wanted to share with you our plans!

 

I am so blessed that our children have developed a true love of learning.  In early May we had completed Seton's 1st grade Religion book with our oldest son.  Without talking to him I had just decided that we would be done with that subject until the "next school year" in the fall.  Well, we started our other lessons the next week and by Tuesday (a mere two days) he asked "What is my next religion book, I haven't done anything for TWO DAYS!"  It also took him a long time to understand why we do not do formalized school on Saturdays and Sundays!  We have a few weeks left of our formalized lessons and we will move onto some new summer fun!

 

 

 Religion

We do such a great job intentionally celebrating Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter but I think that sometimes we forget about intentionally celebrating the liturgical season of Ordinary Time!  This summer we plan to continue going to daily mass when we can, praying our daily prayers and rosary, and learning about the Saint of the Day.  We also will continue with our FAVORITE resource Catholic Mosaic which includes some of our favorite literature texts dung the summer months!

 

  

Math

This past November our oldest son (almost 6 years old at that time) finished his Seton Kindergarten Math book.  Our 4th son was just born so we decided to use Life of Fred for a few months before starting Seton's 1st grade math text.  He LOVED it!  Now that he is almost done with Seton's 1st grade math text and our 4 year old is just finishing Seton's Kindergarten math so we plan to go back to Life of Fred this summer.  It takes us about 1 month to get through one book (19 lessons in each book) and there are 2 books for each grade level.  Our 4 year old will be working on Apples and Butterflies and our 6 year old will be working on Cats and Dogs!

 

Science

 

I am so excited to start St. Thomas Aquinas for Everyone for summer fun science learning.  It has 30 quick and fun lessons, activities and outdoor adventures based on the Summa Theologica!  We will also be spending a lot of time outside doing nature walks, and basic exploration!

 

 

Reading

 

Reading is a part of our daily life all of the time, but in addition to our read aloud time I also love to incorporate other learning with great books!  We have done a lot with Before Five in a Row in the past few years and just started using Five in A Row this past year (2015-2016).  We will be continuing this summer reading these great books and complete the corresponding activities!

You can also follow us with What We've Been Reading to see some fun and exciting books that we read each month!

 

Character/Virtue Building

 

We are going to use the Devotional Stories for Little Folks books from Catholic Heritage Curricula along with the Building Good Character Series.  We have used this a bit before, but it never hurts to add more virtue building!  Plus our oldest son will be able to start reading the devotional stories to all of us, which will allow him to practice his reading skills as well!

 

Physical Activity

 

This is the best part about summer, right?!  Our kids are all taking swimming lessons and spend many afternoons at the city pool or at the lake where the kids grandparents have their boat!  The oldest two boys are playing t-ball this summer and then there are plenty of days biking, hiking and having fun!

 

 

Field Trips and Summer Fun

 

We love to enjoy the beautiful days and embrace letting the kids be kids!  We are blessed with the opportunity to have a lot of free time together as a family always, but summer is a time to really let go and have fun! We love to visit the zoo, go to the park, fly a kit, and go on new adventures!

 

 

Happy Summer!