I swear, I'm not trying to win "mom of the year" or anything over here. I'm just trying to survive the 11 loooong weeks of summer. I decided to look up some theme weeks on Pinterest and found
this that I used as a guide and tweaked a bit to include special things we have going on during our summer (like doing Ocean week before a planned trip to a beach, or doing a Dog Theme before we go and pick up our new surprise puppy... Eek!!!)
We basically do some morning work after breakfast. Cam does a word problem in his math journal, Car colors in his picture notebook, and Ay does some line tracing. I basically tried to take the morning work that they are used to doing at school and make them do it at home. We also hung a calendar and I made a big deal of wanting to learn how they do calendar time at school. There was a lot of "No, Mom! We have to say the days of the week." or "We need to count how many days until our surprise day!" and I just let them teach ME how school works ;)
After morning work, we read a book together and then I let them have some free time.
Around 10 we do our MORNING CHORES. Which include brushing teeth, getting dressed, making our beds. We don't usually make kid beds during the school year, but they strangely enjoy this... Then Baby A goes down for a nap and the big kids help me put in a load of laundry. Again... They love this. Who knew. The first week I found my self being a bit annoying and thinking "Hurry this up, it takes 10 seconds!!" but then I realized that we have a loooong day, and taking 30 mins to load the washing machine is actually a win.
Then they get some more free time until it's time for lunch. Lunch is going 100000xs smoother because Cor is still packing "school" lunches and the kids are giddy about getting their lunchbox from the fridge and cleaning up "like we do at school!" I tried to make everything a big production, "I never get to see how YOU have lunch at school, so please teach me!" Since they are so close in age, I also like to ask them to teach or show the next youngest how things will be in the grade they just finished, "Cam! Show Car how you do morning work in Kindergarten because he needs to know for next year!"
Then after lunch we do our THEME activity. It doesn't take long, but it gives us something to do.
I'm also loosely trying to keep a weekly schedule with our theme activities;
Make it Monday
Tasty Tuesday
Work Out / Water Wednesday
Take a Trip Thursday (Library Story Time)
Family Friday
Then a special surprise on Saturday if they have a good weekly report card (more on that later)
Then we do our AFTERNOON CHORE, which includes cleaning up one main room of the house (Bathrooms, Bedrooms, Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room). Again... Letting my kids spray and clean windows or Swiffer the floor makes them way too excited. They do none of this perfectly, but it's killing time!
Then we watch a movie or show (maybe around our theme) and then free play again until 4pm.
Then we all work together (-ish...) to clean up.
I also made a Clip Up Chart that is just like the one Cam had in his class (and Car will have on his class next year). I know Clip Charts aren't everyone's favorite, and I was questionable when Cam's class had one, but ultimately, it's not my classroom and teacher are Gods on Earth and whatever works for them I fully support. So... Since the kids are used to it, I just kept with it (and have the control to give kids opportunities to do good deeds to end on good colors each day)
Every Monday, we draw put 5 boxes on an index card and label them MTWTF. When Dad gets home, they each color in the color they got for the day. If at the end of the week everyone has a good color, we get to do something special and fun (and you probably already have fun things planned... So just use what you're doing as motivation.) Week 1 we went to the movie theater. They also like to add ideas for special surprises, like go to a restaurant, go get ice cream, or go buy something from the dollar store.
So that's the plan. I'm not at all super prepared or organized beyond having Pinterest on my phone, an idea of a theme, and a stack of construction paper and markers.
Here's a running list of our theme weeks:
Week 1: Space
Week 2: Dogs
We've go this. Let's do this, Summer.
