I had thought we’d carry on with our usual homeschooling routine (such as it is) over the summer, varying it only in that most of our group activities (drama, Beavers, home ed group etc) will stop for six weeks and C and J will be doing a couple of sports courses/summer-camps. Plus more long weekends and the odd week at the beach, of course. But now that old school-friends are on school holidays, it occurs to me that a change of pace will be good for all of us. Then when everyone else starts back at school in September we can take advantage of that back-to-school energy that will be everywhere around us to start afresh.
A few things I’m going to continue as normal: J has been really gaining momentum with his reading and handwriting so we’ll be carrying on with Handwriting Without Tears, Sound Phonics and reading from Reading Literature: First Reader, all of which take only a few minutes each day. We’ll put aside our Singapore Math textbooks but keep practising number facts with games and maybe read some Living Maths books together; we’ll save our new science curriculum, REAL Science: Life, Level 1, for September but have fun with The Ultimate Book Of Kid Concoctions. And of course we’ll continue to read aloud and listen to the wonderful living books none of us perceive as anything but pure enjoyment.
Meantime, the children are indulging in a Harry-Potter-fest! Having listened to The Prisoner Of Azkaban at the weekend, they went straight onto The Goblet Of Fire on Monday – all 17 CDs of it!! I seem to remember that the books get much darker as the series goes on, so I’ve suggested that the next one be read rather than listened to. Hopefully that will put a natural age restriction on the content!
Navigating By Joy 