Summer Learning

Summer offers a wonderful time for kids (and parents) to break from their regular routine of schoolwork! Some homeschool families choose to homeschool year round, others decide to have no formal education over the summer months, while the rest of us tend to enjoy a combination of these ideas!

This post gives you some great ideas to consider for what you might like to do over the summer break with your kids. And at the bottom, I’ve also added a printable list of more ideas for if/when kids say they are “bored”.

Five Favourite Subjects for Easy Learning Times During the SUMMER!

I personally like to continue with some sort of lesson planning for the summer. Here are five subject areas that I find the easiest to include for this season:

1. ART – I still use our PSLC art curriculum. You can find these described here (the printed/bound, original version) and here (downloadable/printable, newer version).
2. A SECOND LANGUAGE (e.g. French) – Our family likes Mission Monde materials, described here and a few other supplemental resources (e.g. picture dictionaries) mentioned on this other page.
3. HOMESTEADING, HOME SKILLS, CHARACTER ED.
   • Of course, kids can learn gardening skills such as planting seeds, caring for plants (e.g. weeds, lawn, flower beds, making salads)!
   • They might learn about food preservation and help with canning, drying, and other harvest-related skills.
   • Summer can be a great time to bring special projects outdoors or do them in an indoor space when it gets too hot or windy or rains! Especially if the projects take up a lot of space, we might work on these when the “desks” and ordinary “school stuff” are put aside for the season. Examples: Sewing, quilting, wood-working, appropriate kid-level help with renos or other building projects. You can get a free printable that can help with some basic quilting projects here.
   • Animal care can be easier learned when there is more time to train a new puppy, goats, look after hens, watch a pet fish swim around, etc..
   • Summer is also a great time to focus on concepts relating to growing one’s character –
     • I’ve sometimes put together a short VBS (Vacation Bible School) at home for a week (e.g. mornings) of themed and fun lessons, snacks, and crafts. Our kids have really liked these! You can find a simple printable chart here that can help organize those plans.
     • Working through a resource such as Christian Character Education (Teaching Posters and Notes) or Be Willing (a colouring book with lessons) can be a good way to have something as a reminder to discuss and think about throughout a day and put into practice.
4. MUSIC (and stories) TO LISTEN TO
   • more time to sing together (or learn “why” and “how” we sing)
   • more time to practice an instrument (e.g. rent one from Long and McQuade)
   • more time to listen to music while playing or working or resting in the heat of the day
   • also extra time to listen to stories (e.g. CBH classics, stories with “Mrs. G“, and others)
5. SCIENCE
   • MESSY – Summer is a great time to make a mess outdoors (e.g. the elephant toothpaste chemical reaction)!
   • NATURE – Take time to observe the night sky when it’s warm outside, how ant hills are a factory, how to identify rocks and minerals, etc.
   • NATURE WALKS – When we take time to hike together to see the natural world, we can learn a lot too!
   • FIELD TRIPS – And educational vacation destination – Consider the variety available within a reasonable driving distance – perhaps exploring a zoo, seeing a sunset over a coastline, somewhere to go together as a family to learn something.
   • Online Programs –
     • JHA’s Backyard Bugs, Stargazing – These are offered each summer by JHA (and here is my affiliate link).
     • Northwest Treasures Geology Dinosaur Day Camp
     • Chicken Health
6. Bible Conferences and Camps – I’m adding an extra idea here too (because it is also a favourite idea)! That is to learn more from God’s Word by attending daily chapel services at a Christian campgrounds. I realize that this is not something everyone gets to experience and that learning from the Bible isn’t really a “school subject” but rather a regular nourishment to your soul regardless of if you have graduated from a set of grades or not. However, summer can be a great time for those who can plan to attend, either in-person or through the internet, a Bible conference week for any age. Our ministry website, The Word In Our Hearts, has some audios from past summer conferences available for families and individuals to listen to, anytime of the year.

What Else Might We Do?

There have been a summer or more when we have done one or more of the following in our family:

1. Learn to Read – One summer, our kindergarten son learned to read when his older sister used our “Let Me Read” program and played school with him!
2. “Catch Up” or Review a Weaker Skill – e.g. Spelling or Math or Writing a Sentence – more time can be spent without the distraction or pressure to “go to the next subject of the day with the siblings”. This might especially be beneficial for fall or winter-born students (who are naturally the younger ones in a grade level) or in a year where there was a large interruption of studies due to a new baby’s arrival, a major move, a death of a close family member, etc.
3. Fast-track a grade level – A son of ours who was winter-born (so I had kept him at a younger grade as if he had been born a month or so later, which is what many homeschoolers do) wanted to advance a grade over the summer. He finished grade 4 in late spring, then learned the grade 5 math and language arts skills to enter a grade 6 by September. (The grade 5 topics of science and social studies would have been introduced to him already, due to listening in on older siblings’ lessons.)
4. Summer Starts – One year, we began our new school year with a staggered start IN June! This was after having our school break during April/May, and after a ferocious bunch of mosquitoes and blackflies arrived in our neck of the woods! This was also before any of our kids had summer jobs. Doing this was ‘OK’. But it is not something I’d suggest for most families.
5. “Nothing” – Kids take a complete break from schooling and I, as teacher and curriculum designer, take this time to work – to write, edit, and print their lessons for the next year.
6. “Nothing” – Everyone takes a complete break from schooling and we work on special projects around the house or just play or enjoy a vacation! (Some families would instead have longer travel vacation times, such as spending their summers in a cabin or travelling around in an RV. But we have ended up raising our family year-round in one or another area of ‘camping and cottage country’. One summer, we lived in a campground while arranging contractors to build our house. This gave us opportunities to enjoy being sort-of-on-vacation for several weeks.)

“I’m bored!” – A list of more ideas…

Are they sometimes tired of playing with toys and board games? Is sports becoming too much of a good thing? Do you, like me, want to also keep “screen-time” minimalized for kids and teens?

In any family, having a “school break” can mean hearing the words, “I’m bored!” Here is a free printable with numerous ideas for what our kids might enjoy doing during such times. It includes a few applicable Bible verses related to spending one’s time wisely.

Campfire Songs

I also have a 2-page free downloadable printable for those of you who’d like a short reminder list of some campfire song titles! It’s fun to sing outside in the summer evenings with friends and family, sitting on a lawn chair, an old log, etc. around a cozy campfire! Here is the printable for that 2-page list (so that you can print it double-sided, fold it, and have it in your pocket for such times)! Campfire Song List

Bug Repellents

Those pesky bugs can be annoying during these months!

Yet, the typical bug repellents are often full of chemicals which are not only “not beneficial” for a bug’s life, but also “not beneficial except perhaps in the short-term to prevent bites” for us people. Even the so-called “more natural” bug repellents can contain substances which sensitive people can react to.

Applying- Repellent Tips:

• Applying any scented product outdoors is a much better idea than applying them indoors before heading out. (The chemicals have a better opportunity to “air-out” instead of cling long-term in an area.)
• If you are using a spray, apply it a distance away from other people, especially young children, seniors or the disabled (e.g. those limited in being able to walk away from breathing it in).
• Because the number of people becoming sensitive to chemicals in such products is on the rise, it would be a good aim to avoid spraying bug sprays at all while being out in a mixed crowd of people. In other words, spray it on before going into a group of people, rather than during the event as a take-along product to share. (Part of my website blog aims to help educate the public about multi-chemical sensitivities.)
• The product should have its “protection” last at least a few hours after application. So it should not need to be re-applied for long time. All it claims to do is lessen the number of bugs around you, not eliminate them totally. (If a few bugs come around you despite your spray, it doesn’t mean you need more.)

What would be better solutions to this ‘buggy issue’?

1. Wear a screened fabrics – a bug head net or full bug jacket, bug pants, even mesh gloves for weeding. For me, this continues to be the best solution for working in my garden or other yard work and I’ve done this for many years. (We have found our “bug” clothing items at major retailers and Lee Valley (Canada, a mail order business).)
2. Take note of the weather – Be outside more in the windy (and even rainy) days. The bugs don’t like to be blown around and they don’t like showers. It’s OK to work in some “mud” and the weeds tend to pull up easier in stony or rocky ground if the ground is somewhat wet.
3. Grow herbs such as lemon balm in your herb garden and rub fresh leaves on your skin periodically (if you’re not sensitive to lemon balm). Look into other herbs which may have a similar property when used “fresh”.
4. Make your own bug repellent with herbs or essential oils, (if you are not also sensitive to E.O.’s – some multi-chemical sensitive people are). There are several recipes you can find online, depending on the type of insect you are trying to repel in your region.
   • The creamy lotion or (non-aerosol) spray that I have made might (depending on specific batches of what I combine) contain the following (obviously, in small amounts and properly mixed with a carrier oil such as coconut oil, olive oil, and/or avocado oil) –
     • Essential oils – cloves + lemongrass (which is what I put in a bug lotion that the guys in our family like – we have black flies and mosquitoes to repel) or cedarwood + rosemary (which is what I put in a bug spray that they like) or eucalyptus + rosemary + lemongrass + tea tree + perhaps cloves + lavender (which, if using that kind of variety of E.O’s, fewer drops of each would be used).
     • Depending again on what recipe I make, I also might add one or more of the following: cornstarch, shea butter, sea buckthorn oil, vitamin E oil, aloe juice, jojoba oil, apple cider vinegar, witch hazel, and/or melted beeswax. (I have purchased some of my ingredients in the past from Botanical Planet, which ships within Canada.)
     • Here are three of the more helpful websites that I found for making homemade bug repellents. (These are also non-affiliate links.) Nourishing Joy’s website and Don’t Waste the Crumb’s website and Melissa K. Norris’ website (safety precautions and essential oils in general).
   • Do your own study/research on how to make bug repellent and learn about the safety precautions of course, before you attempt to make these sorts of things.