Karen's Adventures in Mommyland: Summer Learning Plans

Usually during the summer I have my older girls do about 30 to 60 minutes of schoolwork each day during the week. I do this to keep them from losing what they've learned during the year and to supplement the areas where I feel the school curriculum is lacking.

One area that I always feel needs an extra boost is grammar and writing. I try to keep writing during the summer varied. One day I might ask them to write a letter to my parents and another day I may ask them to write about a favorite activity or food. I try to keep it fun as much as I can.

Ellie will work on writing journal posts and things of that nature using writing prompts. We will also do some grammar workbook pages to reinforce concepts that she has learned this year.

This summer I plan on using a writing workshop with Madeline to help her improve her writing skills. I feel like writing is falling by the wayside in the public school curriculum so I'd like to work with Madeline to ensure that she's able to write in a way that clearly conveys what she's trying to express. I also want to help her bring her writing to a level where it captivates her audience. Sometimes she brings home papers where a few sections will stand out as bright spots. My hope is she will progress to a point where most of what she writes is of that sort of quality.

We'll also be working on math. Ellie's focus will be on math facts and reviewing various concepts that she worked on throughout the school year. We'll use the math workbook that we got her when we were going to homeschool for the second half of the year. We were going to use the 7th grade Teaching Textbook for Madeline, but after reading what Jessica at Shower of Roses and a few others had to say about the program, I think I might just try to sell our unused copy and go back to using Saxon Math for the summer. I do like how well the Saxon books explain each math concept. There were many times this past school year where we would pull out the Saxon book and refer to it to see how they presented certain concepts that were confusing to Madeline. So even though we won't cover the entire book in a single summer, we can use it for extra practice during the school year, too.

Both of the girls have required summer reading for school this year. Ellie has to read The Lemonade War. I think we can read that book over the course of two weeks. She will have to fill out some worksheets about the book for school, but I won't have that information until my neighbor who is a teacher at the school she will be attending next year gives me the activity packet. Madeline had a list of books that was given to her. She has to select one book and then be prepared to write a two-page letter essay talking about the book and how it affected her and what she learned from reading it. After combing through the list, we determined that we're not thrilled with any of the fiction choices. She was interested in two of the non-fiction titles, but one of them was a graphic novel based on the Diary of Anne Frank. I was a little disappointed that it was the graphic novel version. Why not the real thing? So she settled for The Crossing: How George Washington Saved the American Revolution. I'm hoping that this will not be another summer of fighting her to do her summer reading assignment. I like the idea of her reading this book since she will learn something about American history. Perhaps we can make the book come alive for her and pique her interest so she can write a captivating letter essay by visiting Valley Forge this summer.