Well we are finally getting temperatures in the 70s and 80s here and the school kids are finally out of school, so you know what that means… it is officially summer! Woo hoo! This is by far my favorite season of the year! I <3 summer!!!
This will be our last summer before we send Makenna out into the world (to kindergarten, that is), so I wanted to make it a fun summer for us all. Not only that, but we have been home all day every day since my car accident in November. That’s EIGHT MONTHS of sitting at home almost every single day with my kiddos! We are pretty much going crazy together! So I also want this summer to be pretty organized and structured to keep us out of the chaos that comes from being home so much! More structure = Less fighting = Less of Mom going crazy!
So all this week I have planned out our summer and we will begin our summer festivities next week!
First I started with our daily-at-home schedule:
Our printer is printing pretty crappy lately, so you probably can’t read that. So here it is in typed out form:
8:00 Wake Up. Kids get dressed, clean room, and make beds. Mom takes care of the baby and has her morning devotional time.
8:30 Breakfast and clean-up (this is also when we brush hair and teeth and wash faces and so on)
9:00 Kids TV Time. Mom takes care of baby or finishes up her devotional or finishes clean-up, starting laundry, dinner prep, etc.
10:00 Exercise. Makenna and I do a workout DVD (usually Pilates because that is our favorite!) while Max plays because apparently he doesn’t exercise (he said to me once, “But Mom! I already exercised one day! I don’t want to exercise anymore!” haha).
10:30 Chores. I have my own little chore chart and the kids have theirs. Monday is dusting and bathrooms and Mom and Dad laundry and wash diapers, Tuesday is vacuuming and kid laundry, Wednesday is mopping and towels and diaper laundry, Thursday is kitchen and bedding laundry, and Friday is the once-a-month chores and diaper laundry. I’ve had my chore chart for years now but only recently did I make one for the kids. They now help me do my chores every day! With all three of us working together, we can finish in half a hour (it takes a bit longer than just me doing it by myself- but hey they are learning!).
11:00 Kids Outside time. Mom finishes anything that needs finished or works on her lesson for church (or blogs!) or takes care of the baby. I also make lunch during this time.
12:00 Lunch and clean up.
12:30 Scripture study. Every day Makenna reads a chapter from the illustrated scriptures out loud for her and Max. Then she has a journal question that she answers and writes about.
1:00 Max’s nap time in Mom and Dad’s room, Makenna’s Quiet Time in their room, and Mom takes care of the baby and has a little free time to read or nap.
3:00 Snack and library reading time. The kids are doing the library reading program so Makenna reads on her own for 30 minutes and Max does a reading activity and then reads with me during that time.
3:30 Summer Fun Activity (more on that later!)
4:30 (or whenever we finish our activity) until dinner time—Free Time
After dinner is clean up, showers, family scripture study, and free time.
We followed this schedule all this week and it worked PERFECTLY! Sometimes our times changed just a little bit depending on what I had to do to take care of the baby, but for the most part this worked out great for us! Following the schedule allowed us to get done everything we needed to, plus have plenty of play time-- AND there was less arguing between the kids!
Okay, so that was the “structured” part of our summer. Now on to the FUN! For our activity times, I have divided the days up into little “themes.” I searched all over the internet for some ideas and I took some of the things already out there and personalized them for our family.
Monday is “Make a Treat Monday.” This ties in with our treats for Family Home Evening. The kids are going to rotate choosing WHAT we are going to make (well I am also in the rotation and will have weeks to choose the treat), but they will both get to help make the treat. Then we will save them and serve them as our FHE treat. The kids will enjoy this. I am pretty picky about letting kids be around food prep (so not sanitary in my eyes!), so I don’t often let them help in the kitchen. This way they get to cook!
Tuesday is “Trip to the Beach Tuesday.” I still do not have a car. But beach days are just something I am not willing to give up! Beach days are our FAVORITE days in the summer! So on Tuesdays I will drive Austin to work in the morning and pick him up in the evening and our daily schedule will fly out the window so we can spend our day at the beach! It will be interesting this year to go to the beach by myself with a 5 year old, 4 year old, and a baby, but I plan to do it!
Wednesday is “Who’s Up for Crafts? Wednesday.” I guess technically all of our activities aren’t CRAFTS, but they are at least creative activities! On our schedule is paint with water outside, make tin foil sculptures, make and fly a kite, create sidewalk chalk cities, make handprint flowers, make and use fizzy sidewalk paint, create a rock mosaic, do life-size drawings of the kids, and do dot paintings.
Thursday is “Thinking Thursday.” The kids are always begging to play games on my Ipad or on the computer and I actually seldom let them. So on Thursdays this summer they will have a hour to take turns playing educational games. Makenna’s kindergarten actually uses Ipads and computers quite a bit, so it will be good practice for her as well. Plus we get in a little “thinking” because most of my games are educational! So one week Makenna will use the computer and Max will use the Ipad, and the next week they will switch!
Friday is “Funday Friday.” On Fridays I have just other random fun activities we are going to do. Let’s see. We have walk to and play at the park, Body Part Bubble Pop, a Nature Scavenger Hunt, Balloon Volleyball, play on a homemade Slip and Slide, play in the sprinklers (Max got an awesome sprinkler set for his birthday last year), do an outdoor learning game that I found online, play with measuring cups and spoons in water, and then we are going to end our summer activities with backyard camping.
I have all of our Summer Fun info laminated and it is hanging up over the fireplace. The kids have spent quite a bit of time checking their daily schedule and reading our calendars and talking about the fun things coming up!
I will probably post quite a bit of pictures and whatnot this summer, because I then want to print it out and make a book that the kids can look at. So get ready to see a lot more of our summer plans in action! : )
No comments:
Post a Comment