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Summer School at Home

Part of being a mother of more than one child is feeling guilt. I use to spend so much time doing fun things with Jake (who is now 5) as well as teaching him new things. I feel guilty for not having as much time to do that with him anymore. I also feel guilty for not having the same amount of time to do these things with our 2yr old twins as I did with Jake when he was their age.

Last summer was hard. The twins were about 1.5 and they just needed a lot of attention and supervision. So, I think Jake was pretty bored for the most part last summer aside from going to TKD and library activities. I am thinking about this because he only has about one month of school left.

I subscribe to the BookCloseOuts.com newsletter and I recently received one stating they were having a $0.99 cent sale on learning books and teaching tools. So I started poking around and came up with this idea for using these paper charts. They were only $0.99 for a pack of 30, so I bought 3 packs. I figured one chart a day would get us through the summer.

We already have a system where Jake can do certain things in return for Mardi Gras coins, which he can then use to buy things from a little store in the corner of my bedroom. So my idea is that I would write an activity in each square on the chart (except I think I will only use 16 squares) and he can earn one Mardi Gras coin for each row he completes (across, down, or diagonal). So if he completes the whole chart, then he would earn 10 coins total. Each day there will be a new chart.

This is going to take a lot of preparation on my part. I have to be ready for him to do whatever activities he chooses on each chart. I still have to make a list of activities, but off the top of my head some of them can be:
  • Working in his workbooks
  • Drawing a picture and telling me a story based on the drawing
  • Unscrambling sentences
  • Reading a book out loud
  • Drawing a picture within certain parameters (like with a blue triangle and 2 green squares)
  • Singing songs with his brother and sister
  • Reading a book out loud
  • Playing grocery store to work on counting money

I think this would work out better for us than having a time table that said at this time we work on math and at this time we work on reading. What do you think? Also, if you have any more fun activities, please let me know. I need a lot of ideas if I'm going to make a varying chart everyday.