We are winding down the school year here and I’m already tying up the loose ends for next year. I’ll be talking a lot in the upcoming weeks about planning the upcoming homeschool year. Today, I’m showing you how our year round homeschool will look now that we’ve switched to Mother of Divine Grace (MODG). What is our summer schooling shaping up like this year?
Why summer schooling…
MODG has brought a lot of peace to this homeschooling mama’s heart. Not only do I have less planning, but I’m also at peace knowing we’ve completed all the tasks on our syllabus. When we’ve finished the syllabus for the year, it means I don’t have to feel like I need to cram in more learning. Before the big switcheroo, I never felt done. When we were done with one curriculum, we just picked up the next and moved on. We did our school work all.year.long. with very few breaks.
I know, I know, we shouldn’t think of learning as a checklist that can be completed, but those checklists have been a tool to help me be confident in our homeschooling endeavor. I can rest knowing we’ve finished the tasks laid out for us by a tried and true homeschooling method. Now, when we do take a break, I don’t worry about whether we are accomplishing enough. Instead, I can take our time off to truly relax and refresh my soul, because let’s face it – homeschooling is no easy task, and we homeschooling mamas need some refreshment! Even when you use a box curriculum, there is still plenty of daily leg work to unwind from!
That said, we’ll still be doing our year round homeschooling for the very same reasons I stated in this post: 7 Reasons to Homeschool Year Round. Our summer school this year will be more relaxed than in years past. It will be a time to explore deeper, read together, and do more relaxed, interest-led learning.
As you can see, we’ll be focusing on the 4 R’s (Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, and Religion) during our summer schooling.
Math
My main reason for homeschooling year round is so my children don’t backslide. I don’t want to take a lot of time at the beginning of each academic year to cover material that has been forgotten over the summer. I think the subject that summer amnesia manifests itself in the greatest measure is math.
While in past years, we’ve always just moved on to the next level of math during the summer months, this year I feel the need to really let the new concepts sink in. Therefore, we’ll be using the Life of Fred series as a family as well as reviewing a lot of the math we’ve learned through the year. I think Life of Fred will be a fun way to start my kindergartner in mathematics, reinforce my 4th grader, and get in some cooperative learning.
We’ll be completing 1-2 Saxon math lessons a week to bolster our review. During the summer, we will move slower, completing ALL the review problems in each lesson before moving on. This will mean each lesson will probably take 2 days.
Another option is to work on math facts. Here is one of our favorite fun tools to reinforce those facts – Math Wrap-ups.
Summer is also a great time to read some math related books that help those concepts sink in a little deeper. Here is a list of some math related literature from What Do We Do All Day. I’ll also be using the other Math literature lists I’ve saved to my Math Pinterest Board.
Writing
When we made the switch to MODG, we dropped the composition course I was really enjoying with my third grader. We’ll pick that back up this summer and finish it off. The course we used is called All Things Fun and Fascinating from IEW. Summer is a great time to complete any intensive writing course.
We’ll also be working on improving our penmanship – an ongoing battle!
Want something more relaxed? Try free journaling or nature journaling.
Lots of reading
We read all year round! There is no better way for a child to spend their time, in my opinion. There will be lots of read alouds (mostly outside) and we’ll continue working through the required reading list I create for my readers at the beginning of every school year.
During our summer travels, we’ll pack lots of audio books to listen to as a family. We completed the audio version of Story of the World Volume 3 this year, and will be listening to that again as well as Volume 4 of the same series. Our whole family loves these CDs, and the audio format is the perfect, easy-to-use supplement to any homeschool curriculum.
Religion
We shouldn’t stop living our faith in the daily routine just because school is out. We’ll be making Bible time and prayer time a priority. If you don’t have family devotions established already, summer can be a more relaxed time to introduce the habit.
We’ll also be digging into one of our favorite books: My Path to Heaven. I love, love, love this book. It is something both the kids and I get a lot out of!
Other Summer Schooling Ideas:
- Explore in depth something you had to surface learn during the year
- Practice math facts
- Read a lot (aloud and independently)
- Intensive writing course
- Add in all those “extras” you didn’t have time for earlier in the year
- Nature Study
- Journaling
- Unit Study
- Science experiments
- Move on to the next grade level in your boxed curriculum and take more breaks during the year.
You may be interested in the Pinterest boards I have covering different homeschooling subjects. There are lots of great summer schooling ideas among them!
Above all, don’t forget to take some time to just relax and unwind a little too! A rested mother’s heart is a great asset to your homeschool all year round.
