Sonlight Blog Party: Summer learning activities

June’s topic for the Sonlight Blog party is Share your favorite summer reading and learning activities.

Ah summer! It turns me upside down! Summer summer summer! It’s like a merry-go-round…(name that song!) The long-awaited break is finally here! You can’t wait to put the books away, enjoy a slower pace  and just soak up the sun. However, soon enough the “I’m booooooored!” cries begin. How to ward it off? With a summer schedule of course!

Years ago, I read Sanity in the Summertime: The Complete Summer-Survival Handbook for Moms that I had heard about on Focus on the Family and it changed our summers for the better! We had a loose weekly schedule that gave some structure to our days but wasn’t too confining. When the kids were really little I brainstormed things/activities that I wanted to do together that I often didn’t have time for during the school year. Then I assigned a day to that activity. Want to see what I mean? Here’s a sample schedule:

Monday – House day (The day I did chores/laundry and the kids got to play with neighborhood friends. To this day, Monday is still my house day.)

Tuesday – Library day (We’d go to the library to participate in the summer reading program. We’d get credit for the books the kids had read for the week and pick out new books. It was often combined with errand day.)

Wednesday – Beach day (Some years it was on Friday. This was usually organized with other friends. One friend called it “Wet Wednesday” because besides the beach we would sometimes go to a pool instead.)

Thursday – Craft day (A few years ago we called it Pinterest Day. We made cool crafty projects that we found on Pinterest.)

Friday – Cooking/Baking day (Anything from Snickerdoodles to homemade pretzels. Again, we’d sometimes invite friends over to participate in the making and eating.)

This schedule allowed the kids to look forward to doing something fun/special, but it also allowed for plenty of free play time. It worked out great!

What about you? Do you have a special thing do you do to keep kids busy and learning in the summer? I’d love to hear it! Tell me in the comments.

About Sheila @ Making the Most of Every Day

I'm a wife, mom, and a homeschool teacher. I'm always behind on housework and paper pile sorting. I'm fond of this crazy life but not of melted cheese. I want to follow hard after God, making each day really count. I like to run, read, cook (and eat!). Thanks for joining along on my journey!

8 thoughts on “Sonlight Blog Party: Summer learning activities”

  4. I like this idea – we’d been having art on Fridays, and we also met friends at the splash park on Friday afternoons last year. I may try and get library trips and cooking/baking onto a regular day as well.

    1. See if your library offers a story hour if your kids are younger. Or if they offer a summer reading program if they are older. We would collect our points and then get new books for the week. For baking one year we made several things from the free A-Z cookbook Gold Medal offers. We also made fun things like homemade pretzels and tried several different cookie recipes.

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