Summer Learning

The past couple of years, I've spent the summer doing 'camp days' with #hundboysx4. I'll come downstairs in the morning and announce, "It's MOVE-IT MONDAY" or "Get ready for a WACKY WEDNESDAY."

If you want more ideas of camp days like this, read more about it here.

That's been going really well and kids really like it. It gave a little focus to our days and also kept things fresh.

This year, for so many reasons, I decided I wanted to be just a bit more structured and do a little more intentional educational activities. We were already knee deep in a routine where we spent some time in the morning doing school-ish type things because of in person school being canceled since mid March. Since we don't have many places to go or other activities like sports or camps, I felt like having something for 1-3 hours each day might make sense.

As I was planning for what that might look like back in June, Carter ended up being my muse. 

He was in his final year of preschool when everything shut down. It has been so hard to think about what he missed and also what he will be missing starting the year online as a kindergartener. He's been on my mind so much- some his first memories will be of this pandemic, his schema about elementary school will be shaped based on his experience as an online learner. That stinks. 

In preschool he learned about a letter every week. Theyfocused on it to practice writing, words, and sounds around that letter and also did art projects or cooking or fun activities with that letter in mind. The last letter he did at school was 'R.' So I decided to pick up at 'S.'

During the summer, Carter has been practicing the writing, sounds, and kindergarten sight words of the remaining letters of the alphabet and practicing important literacy, fine motor, and mathematical concepts based on the letter of the week like tracing, time, shapes, and vowels. 

For Nolan and Judah, I kicked it up a notch. They were practicing sight words from a variety of grades with that letter in mind while also diving into concepts that were based on that letter. For example, during 'S' week, we focused heavily on subtraction, summarizing, syllables, etc. Or doing 'V' week, they worked on verbs or place value.

Together, the big three and me learned 'smarty pants' words from the remaining letters of the alphabet each week. We've enjoyed adding words like 'scattered,' 'variety,' and 'yanked' into our vocabulary at home. 

For science, we did experiments and studied concepts based on the letter of the week as well. We did a lot of learning about sound during 'S' week and dove into volcanoes during 'V' week. 

To continue our global citizenship, I found an awesome way to weave the world and its people into our weekly explorations. I started following the 2020 Global Children's Book Club. There is a new country of study for every letter in the alphabet and includes many resources for families like book titles, videos, a STEM and art activities, and interviews with citizens of those countries. I also checked out a lot of books from the library on the country we were studying each week so 

N, J, and C could look through and learn more independently about each place. I cant' tell you how enriching that experience has been and how many more places we have to visit on our bucket list. Did you know Wales has more castles, per square mile, than any other country in the world?! 

Planning these learning experiences have taken work, time, and careful thought, but it is such a win/win for both the kids and I. We've had something to keep us occupied and engaged for part of each day and are keeping our minds fresh and practicing important skills. I'm hoping the summer slide that has been exacerbated by the pandemic school shut down will be a little less severe for my boys than it could have been otherwise. 

I've wrote about this in many other ways throughout this pandemic, but there is so much out of my control right now (which is SO difficult for me). Planning out some our of day to keep us all learning is something I can control- it's something I feel like I can do to help or something. I also love a good theme and felt it was natural and authentic to fully embrace Carter's missed 8 letters in the alphabet to help anchor our summer together. I think N and J also felt proud to be 'helping' Carter finish out his preschool even though they were doing good learning themselves.