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Monday, April 29, 2013

Summer School Series


I blame my desire to have "Summer School"  on the fact that I always wanted to be a teacher and never became one.  I have thought about homeschooling, but I don't think that I would be as dedicated with it as I should be. So, I created a summer school program that works for our family.

We are not perfect at doing "Summer School", but it does help us to stay in a routine during the summer so that we are not laying in our PJ's all day, everyday.  There is nothing wrong with that either, we have days like that too!!!!   I want to show a few ideas we have done...  for the next couple of Mondays check out my summer school series.  A lot of ideas have come from homeschool sites, internet and just simply reviewing what they learned from the previous year at school.

One of our favorite things to do each morning, is MORNING MOMENTS.  We read from our Book of Mormon and write what we are grateful for in a book.  We also write an affirmation that we could focus on for the day.  This has really helps us get started for the day.


Each of the girls have a summer school box, inside the box is divided into sections with hanging folders.  We have section for: Morning Moments, Math, Spelling, Writing and Other. This helps keep everything together.  Last year, I create a book that I had bound which is separated into daily activities.  At the end of the book there is a section for me to sign that they have completed that assignment. 


After doing summer school for the past few years I found this worked best for us. Our daily activities list. We also have a spelling assignment each day.  They choose a spelling activity out of our spelling box. You will find them in Summer School Series- Spelling.   


For our writing assignments, we either write in our journal that they received from their school teachers or in the dry erase letters books (from Walmart). 


One year we did reports each week. They would research a topic write 5 interesting facts and then I gave them a 12x12 paper for them to either paste or draw pictures of the topic they researched.  We then presented them to each other on Thursdays at "Park and Picnic Day". 




Last year we decided to memorize the States and Capitals of the United States of America. We took each day of the week and did these activities to help us.

  •  Monday we would learn 7 new States and Capitals and color them on a map
  • Tuesdays we would play computer games about the states and capitals.
  • Wednesday we would play a memory game on the States and Capitals they we had learned.
  • Thursday we would play United State Bingo.
  • Friday we would have a little test to see how many they had remembered.
At the end of the summer my third grader had all 50 States and Capitals memorized and my kindergartener  remembered 41 States and Capitals when she took her test. 

We also have FUN FRIDAY after our tests!  They include:

  • Water Party
  • Park Day
  • Museum Day
  • Cooking Day
  • Balloon Party
  • Feed Ducks and Picnic
  • Movie Day
  • Craft Day
  • Science Experiments
Check out next Monday for our 
Summer School Spelling Activities.

For more ideas check out our pinterest board- Summer School
Jan

5 comments:

  1. What great ideas to keep the kids busy for summer. I wonder if I could adapt it for me to help me keep learning each day? This brings back memories of when I was a kid. My dad had built us a chalkboard and a podium. We had desks like we had at school. I loved being the teacher. Great post.

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  2. Wow let me know when open enrollment is Jan I've got someone to sign up! JK great post

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  3. I will have to add this to my summer list! Very creative! I am a new follower from southern charm! I would love for you to check out my blog and hopefully you will want to follow me back! Happy weekend Nicole!

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    1. Thank Nicole. I loved your space party idea. Glad to be following you now!!

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