The 183rd Carnival of Homeschooling - part 1, 'The lazy days of summer'

 

Welcome to part 1 of the 181st Carnival of Homeschooling.  I've broken this carnival into separate parts, each one dealing with a specific topic.   Part one combines musings on summer activities with ideas for activities.

Barbara Frank makes a very good point in her post on summer activities. 

She says that signing the kids up for summer activities can become something we do automatically, but that could be a mistake.  I fully agree with her.  Children need to be bored so that they can learn to relax and be creative.  We love summer in our home because most of the scheduled classes end at the end of May and we get to do school light, lots of crafts plus lots of swimming and playing.   I get caught up on all my reading and the kids relax.  That said, we're doing far more summer camps this year than I like, but all four of them are things that the children desperately want to do.

Janice Campbell writes about boredom Little tit bits I picked up from her thought provoking article were:

Next time one of your children complains about being bored, or you wonder why you have to do the same task over and over again, consider this: You may be bored, but did you know that the very word itself wasn’t even invented until after 1750? Now that’s an interesting fact to keep your boredom at bay! 

“Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at television. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.” (Carl Sandburg)

Dee Ashley sees summer as the perfect time for a non-homeschooler to homeschool.  She writes:

Explore your online options and interact with your kids this summer. There is a fabulous world of educational fun out there: free movies, card games, planning sheets etc. Who knows they might enjoy it so much that by the time September rolls around they'll be clamoring for Fall Home School.

My contribution to summer fun involves running your very own summer art camp.

Summer camps are pricey and when you have more than one child, the cost of camps can be prohibitive.   Why not run your own summer camp?  You school your children at home, so why not camp at home as well?

Last summer, I ran an ooey, gooey, messy, summer art camp for my kids and some of their friends.   There is something so liberating about indulging in messy, unadulterated fun.  

Summer is the perfect season to work on your nature journals.   Raising Olives shares detailed instructions on how her family successfully uses nature journals.

We require one nature entry a week. When I look at their assignment for the week they are usually full of information that they want to share with me. After we have discussed their page, I will usually tell them what I want them to do for the next week. Often the assignment will be exactly the same as the one I outlined above. However, if I notice that a particular child is struggling to do meaningful research or is stuck in a rut, I will give them a more specific assignment to help them progress in their ability. For example, if they are failing to convey new and meaningful information on their nature page, I would give them a specific question to answer or a process to explain for their next assignment.

 

What are your plans for your children this summer?  Why not submit a blog post on this topic to the next Carnival of Homeschooling.