We're finished for the year! This is the first year we've done this - usually we work through most of the summer and take 2 or 3 weeks off in August before starting the new year (I've always been afraid that once I stopped for longer than that, I'd never start again . . .)

This year the boys wanted a "real" summer vacation. So we haven't taken off a week here and there so much during this school year, and today was our last day of school - tomorrow begins eight glorious weeks of free time!

Well, not totally free - we'll still have an hour and a half in the morning for chores, devotions and a readaloud (we're going to try Waverley by Sir Walter Scott - how's that for ambitious?) and the boys will have a few other things to do. Tim will be working on math and Latin, J will be working on spelling, grammar and Algebra, and L will be practicing basic math skills, a little bit of writing, and I'll be reading him Hillyer's Child's Geography of the World. He's starting Year 5 next year and we have the option of doing either the Hillyer book or Halliburton's Book of Marvels. We have both and I don't want him to miss either one, so I'm reading him one over the summer.

It sounds like a lot, but we'll be getting done before noon every day and the stuff we're doing is either fun stuff or things they've needed focused time with (like L and his basic math facts).

Aside from that, they're going to be reading books of their choice. We looked at the Barnes and Noble summer reading program - if your child reads a certain number of books, Barnes and Noble will award him with a free book. But we didn't like their selection of book awards, and it's only for little kids. So I'm going to buy them a book of their choice for every six books they read.

L will probably get his book, he plans to read Paddington Bear and Boxcar Children books, and those are pretty easy for him. J will likely start out overly-ambitious and pick books like The Silmarillion, Ben Hur, and The Bride of Lammermoor - and never finish even one because he spent the summer adding a new deck onto the house instead of reading. T will probably end up with a complete new library before the summer's over.

What will I do with eight whole weeks? I'm hoping to clear out piles of stuff that's built up in my bedroom for the last four years, since I was pregnant. We have plans for re-arranging the room with different storage, and that should help, but that project won't happen overnight.

Comments