So I'm thinking about the next year while we're taking our summer break.  Honestly, I'd be happy to start school tomorrow, but my kids are enjoying their break.  Actually, we are doing some things right now.  We are reading the Little House on the Prairie series and learning how to do notebooking.  I'm trying to get us in the habit of notebooking during the summer so that we will be ready when we start up in August. 

I've asked my husband, Jeremiah, to help me plan a summer schedule and a school schedule so that we can easily transition back into our full school day.  So I composed a list of things that I'd like to schedule time for.  Here is the list of summer activities I want to schedule:

Quiet time for Evan and me

Morning chore time to follow breakfast

Family Bible time - I will use my Betty Luken Bible Felts

2 seperate Read Aloud times  - one for the Little House Books and one for Parables From Nature

Notebooking Time

Deep cleaning time in the afternoon - to get the things I don't have time for during the school year

Personal reading time for me

Here are the items I want to schedule for the school year:

Time for individual subjects:

Bible - we will have a Bible time with all children and then a more in depth study with Evan in the afternoons - I am using Bible study workbooks from here.

Notebooking - our writing will be accomplished through this

Math

Spell to Write and Read

Read Aloud - History, Science, Literature, Poetry - We use Sonlight for these subjects

Reading Practice for Nathan

Reading for Evan

Grammar Ace

Vocabulary Vine

Dictation and Copy work

Foreign Language

Geography - we actually do this with Sonlight history, but I want to add in some map coloring to go into our notebooks - Does anyone know any free resources for black line maps?

On Friday's I want to do these things:

Studies of Shakespeare, Composers, and Artists - I will use resources from Ambleside Online for this

Games

Experiments

Special Projects

Art

Here are a few more things I need to incorporate:

Chore time - morning and afternoon

Preschool time with Elizabeth

Quiet time for Evan and me

Reading time for me

We also do Co-op on Thursday afternoons. 

I realize that this is a lot, but this is what I want to get accomplished.  If I can't get this stuff done between 8 am and 9 pm along with all the other stuff I have to do, then I will cut stuff from the list.  Also, some things like Grammar Ace and Vocabulary Vine don't have to be done daily.  Neither do science or history.  So I could do Grammar Ace on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Vocabulary Vine on Tuesday and Thursday for example.  Maybe I'll do one day of science reading and one day for experiments, then I can do some other reading or another subject during the "science" time slot.  I plan to discuss this with Jeremiah and to really pray about my schedule before I implement it. 

Another idea that I'm really excited about is that some friends and I are getting together, just the girls, one day next month to work on our plans for next year.  This will be a nice time without the kids to distract us where we can really focus on what our goals are. 

Hopefully with God's help and my planning, this will be our best school year ever!

~Linda~