Summer Schedule and Ideas

I had a few friends ask me how I plan my summer out and thought I would share it with anyone interested.  First off.....I'm a preschool teacher! I have been writing up lesson plans for the past 7 years of my life so it is habit and very routine for me. So if this seems excessive, then just do what you are ok with. But for me...

this is all I know :)

Start out by printing out a calendar page for the months you need to plan. I will be gone the first week of August and then school starts so I just wanted to focus on June and July. 

Start out by asking your kids what are some thing they would like to learn about or know more about. My sone LOVES animals so I told him to tell me specific ones to learn about. 

Then I went through each week and gave it a theme. Our first week will be "Beaches and Ice Cream"

Now plug in all the activities you have schedules already like swim lessons or summer camps etc.

I made a simple (plain and boring) weekly schedule. I don't have time to make it all cute and whatnot and really who cares.....it is for my eyes only and I will throw it away.

This is where you can get more specific and the Saturday or Sunday before the week.....plan out your week so you can be prepared. Yes, it will take some time on your part but well worth it to having a smooth week at home with the kids. 

Now the time I really need to plan for is the afternoon. We have swim every morning, it is after lunch that kids start asking to watch TV and then 3 hours go by and your child hasn't moved from the couch. This is where the planning will really help.

Luckily my toddler takes his nap at this time so I have to keep my 7 year old and 4 year old busy and learning. 

We will do cooking one day, art projects, service projects, work pages, activity bucket (I will explain below), play dough, science project etc. 

I also have my kids do one hour of quiet time in their rooms and they can play with any and all the toys they would like. They can't come out unless to go potty and this did take a good week to really get them to understand. But now they know what I expect and they usually end up playing longer than an hour.

Here are what I call our "Activity Buckets". As you can see they are not fancy, just a buckets with random activities in them. I have coloring pages, stickers, blank paper, crayons, markers, glue, scissors, work sheets and dry erase markers.  I let my kids choose what they want to do from the activity bucket. I will add new items when they run out of them.  My sone LOVES Mario and Legos, so I will get online and google "mario coloring pages" and print out several different ones. I even let him choose the ones he would like to color.  I have had these activity buckets for about a year now and they really have been a great success.  My daughter never complains when she sees me getting them out, sometimes my son does because he is not into coloring as much as she is but once he sees his mario or something from Lego land he is happy as can be.  

I LOVE to find already made worksheets online. My daughter loves Wizard of Oz so I found these tracing work sheets for her. p I print them out and I slip them into a sheet protector then she can use them over and over again. Kids LOVE dry erase markers.

My last tip on summer boredom busters is keep your eyes open. Whenever you see something on clearance or really cheap, it is worth the money to keep your kids entertain for awhile. I LOVE the dollar store and dollar sections.  Also use your local crafts stores coupons...they are always for 40% or 50% off so buy fun art project for them to do. JoAnns, Michael and Hobby Lobby have sooooo many fun crafts and projects you can buy.

I hope to post weekly, some of the projects and plans we will be doing. Please share your ideas with me as well. Happy Summer!!!!!

Oh and last but not least........as you can tell, I'm not a photographer nor will I ever be. So sorry for the lame pictures but you get the point ;)