Summer is upon us and although we love a good break, we also really appreciate routine in our home. I love that while routines help us find our way throughout the day, they’re also super flexible. So we absolutely include a Summer learning plan during our “break!”
Want to incorporate a Summer learning routine this year but not quite sure how? Follow along below for 5 simple steps to get yours all planned out!
Table of Contents – Click to jump ahead!
Review Your Summer Calendar
Before you start to create your Summer learning plan, you want to take a look at your calendar to see what kind of time you have to work with and what events you’ll need to work around. The quickest way to overwhelm yourself when it comes to any form of homeschooling is to make lesson plans without considering time off. So take a seat, grab some calendars like our EDITABLE printable monthly calendars, and write down days you will for sure NOT be able to work on learning activities.
Events to keep in mind when planning might include…
family vacations
Vacation Bible Schools
sports events
important celebrations and holidays
church events
field trips
camps
Choose Your Goals
When choosing learning goals for our Summer learning plan, I like to do 2 things. First, I look back over the school year we just completed to see what skills could use some extra review time. I generally don’t teach any new skills over the Summer, so this is the perfect time to get in some extra practice with necessary skills.
I also look at the upcoming school year. By this point I’ve usually already purchased our homeschool materials for the next year. So I spend some time looking at what we’ll be introducing the next year and thinking about what foundational skills will be important to have mastered. For example, our 2nd grade Math year will include adding and subtracting with regrouping. So in our learning plan, we’ll spend time reviewing our addition and subtraction facts, as well as reviewing place value!
Read about some of our favorite Summer learning activities here!
Choose a Learning Rhythm
So you’ve reviewed your family’s Summer calendar. You’ve also picked the skills/subjects your kiddos need some extra practice with. Next up? Choose a learning rhythm!
We prefer using rhythms or routines over planning a rigid schedule. The main difference is that we do the same subjects/activities in the same order each day. But we don’t tie them to specific times during the day. That way we’re free to spend as much time as needed on each subject/activity and we can start/finish whenever we need!
For our own Summer learning time…
I’m not sure about your neck of the woods, but here in North Texas it gets HOT in the Summer. So, our days tend to be oriented around the heat.
Mornings and late evenings are pretty much the only times we like to get outside (unless water is involved, of course). So our mornings and late evenings are usually spent at a park, a splash pad, or even just playing in the backyard or going for a walk!
By afternoon, it’s blistering hot outside so that’s when we really tackle our Summer learning plan. At this time, we focus mainly on our Math and Language Arts curriculum and get lots of leisure reading in!
Gather Resources
The next-to-last task when prepping our Summer learning plan is to gather the resources you plan on using with your littles. I like to keep everything in one spot, like this basket above. Having our school resources all in one spot makes getting to work quicker since you’re not hunting for workbooks and supplies. But it’s also helpful because you can grab your basket and work anywhere! We love taking our basket out onto the back patio, on extended Summer trips with us, or even just to a different room in the house to give us a change of scenery!
Keep Track of Learning Plan Tasks
Planning our learning activities is one of my favorite things to do! (Ya can’t take the lesson planning teacher out of the teacher-turned-homeschooler, y’all!) Once I’ve made our goals, figured out our rhythm, and gathered our resources, I love to sit down with a hot cup of coffee and our FREE planning pages to get everything sorted out!
These planning pages include 6 blank subject areas because I plan for 6 subjects during our normal school year. But you could absolutely just plan for a few subjects, or even get crazy and use the remaining subject areas to plan family outtings, crafts, board games, etc. for your do to do as well. And don’t forget about our FREE Summer bucket list for more ideas of activities to do as a family!
Planning for a Preschooler?
If you are preparing a Summer learning plan for a toddler or Preschooler, I’d LOVE to help you out! Click the button just below to download our free FULL YEAR Preschool curriculum map. This includes May, June and July! You’ll find TONS of weekly themes, no prep ideas, and more for your little learners this Summer!
Let’s Hang Out!
I hope this outline for how to create a Summer learning plan for your family has been helpful! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so come hang out with us in one of our favorite places!
SAVE THIS POST FOR LATER!
Was this post about how to make your Summer learning plan helpful? Make sure you can come back to it as much as you need by saving it for later on Pinterest! Click the image below to save this pin to your favorite homeschool board!
0