We thought we'd start the summer off by me throwing the baby shower of the century tonight (woot!), and potty training Poppy on Saturday. Then Sunday I need to have a serious, very serious, planning session with myself. Because starting Monday, I, as MOM, am ON.
When I was young, my Mom would take us on a rotation of morning outings in the summer - swim lessons, library, park, etc. Once in awhile there was a craft project at home. All this was done under the diabolically clever name, "Summer Fun Club", which I still remember as being way more amazing and fun than my Mom does. Then, in the afternoons, we were on our own to read, play, imagine, ride bikes, and cavort with the neighborhood kids until dinner. The summers all blur together but my general memory is that they were awesome.
Some things are the same these days; some, different. I've been making mental plans for a few months now of how I want to structure our summer days so we are all busy - and happy - enough, but not over scheduled. I have a knack for setting impossible targets like that. Mostly I just want to avoid, to a realistic extent, 1) justified whining, "I'm bored!", and 2) too much screen time, which is what happens when I fail to plan.
So. Let me pull my act together and next week I'll report on what and how we're doing. In the meantime, let's hear how you handle summer with your school kids home. And to get the ball rolling, here's a great post from my sister's blog - Mom, What Can I Do? - and one from the Local Living section of the Washington Post yesterday - Summer on the Brain.
It's good to know that if all else fails, I can enroll the girls in an SAT prep course.
3 comments:
Lately I've been freezing favorite toys deep in ice. When the kids get bored I pull a solid block out of the freezer, lay out some tools, and let the kids do their destructive worst to try to break the encased object/objects free.
We also write postcards and then walk to the mailbox and mail them. I've got a big box of postcards the kids can pick from, stickers they can decorate with, stamps to apply, and a big map labeled with names they can pick from.
I need a teenager version of Summer Fun Club!
We are also going to the Smithsonian Folkways Festival this week and Wof Trap's Theater in the woods. Ive also heard the Washington ballet is putting on a pretty good looking lion the witch and the wardrobe tho my kids are a little young for it.
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