How does one balance kids
should be able to be kids over the summer and not have every minute of
their lives structured and kids shouldn’t
sit on their butts for three months and expect to be ready for the next
grade? It seems the ongoing conundrum.
So this is how we’re doing it, right or wrong:
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Each of us has a journal, and I’m doing it too. It’s a
struggle for Henry, as he has difficulty coming up with WHAT to write, but I’m
hoping that keeping it going will be good for him. For the most part, it’s one
page a day (they are small books) but for H we started with five sentences, and
we’ll get longer for him through the summer. I’m trying to teach him details. “I
went to camp today.” Okay, so what did you do at camp? Who did you play with?
What happened during [whatever activity]? Write like you’re telling us what
happened today.
For Spencer, it’s just that he needs to be reminded to
write but he is fine with the full page (last night he cried because he needed
to go to bed but wasn’t done writing; he was on his second page). I’ve told
them I’ll read them if they want me to, but if they don’t want me to then I’ll
just check for length and handwriting.
The other thing I decided on a whim was to order bridge
activity books for each grade level. We got these and they do one page a day,
which usually has a reading comprehension exercise and some math. The exercises
are a little different than they’re used to so both needed me to explain their
first page, but there was little huffing from them about doing it.
Finally, reading. They love to read so this isn’t a chore,
but I just make them read something of substance for 30 minutes of the day. Any
other time they can keep reading said substantial book or they can read Foxtrot
or Dogman or Wimpy Kid, but they need to read something with more words than
pictures for 30 minutes. This is just an extension of school-year rules, so no
complaints about this.
And that’s it! So much is going on, these are little
things I think are manageable for the summer to keep them engaged while still having
time to do all the things they want to do.
