a wide place

Hello friends! It has been a loooong time since I last posted, so if you’re still around, I thank you.

There are so many fun things to catch you up on, but for now, I thought I’d tell you about our summer plan, in case it’s helpful for anyone else.

Last week I read an excellent blog post by Joy Cherrick, a homeschool mom I follow on Substack, which changed my whole approach to our summer. I wanted to share it with you. Actually, it was a transcript of a podcast episode, and I printed it out to reread each spring (and I think you should too!). But if you prefer listening, you can do that instead.

In summary, Joy talks about first spending some time in reflection before we rush full-tilt into summer busyness. Then, using that reflection to create a meaningful routine for us and our kids so we aren’t all falling into a complete lack of structure and either lazing around or rushing mindlessly from activity to activity.

Simply reading the article made me realize I’ve done a good bit of thinking about how I want to spend my summer (i.e. lots of purging, organizing, and deep cleaning in the house and basement), then lots of pool time with friends when our pool is finished (more about that soon), but I hadn’t thought much about how my children should spend their remaining hours. I knew we want screen time limits, reading, and family time, but I hadn’t done much brainstorming as to specifics.

So!

I followed Joy Cherrick’s advice and started this week by giving my kids a little survey to reflect on the school year and coming summer. I copied and pasted her questions into a document, printed and distributed them. I even filled one out myself because it looked fun.

Here are the questions:

1. What are your top 3 favorite books (or audiobooks) from this year?
2. What was your easiest subject and why?
3. What was your hardest subject and why?
4. What area(s) would you like to improve in next year?
5. What new habit would you most like to work on this summer?
6. What new skill would you most like to learn this summer?

Joy mentioned that I would be surprised at my kids’ answers, and I was! And delighted. I thought they’d hate the assignment but they got into it. David and I had a happy time reading them all afterward.

The funniest answers I received were in response to “What was your hardest subject and why?”

Answers:

“Math because there were too many new concepts”

“Math was 100% my hardest subject because of my learning struggles and I don’t like it so I have no drive to get better”

“Math. Big time. Cause I’m really bad at it.”

And then the remaining kid, in answer to “What was your easiest subject and why?”

“Math, because it’s full of puzzles.”

Ha. Apparently we’re a house full of extremes.

Some new habits the kids want to learn this summer include: Memorize Scripture, be more thankful, and “read my Bible first thing when I wake up instead of putting it off.”

New skills they’d like to learn/work on are: Sketching, photography, grilling, doing laundry, and baking all by myself.

Aren’t those great answers?

What if I hadn’t asked!?

Next, thanks to Joy Cherrick’s advice, I set to work making a weekday routine for each child. This includes daily chores, an extra chore for each weekday, exercise, reading, working on their habit, and time in the week to devote to their skill.

We don’t do screen time on weekdays unless it’s together as a family and I plan to keep that habit during the summer. The exceptions: one of the kids is taking an online coding class, another is writing a novel, and a third is going to take an online photography class. Even with those, there are screen limits (usually 30 minutes), but this is active screen time, rather than passive consumption.

In addition to all of this, I talked to my two older kids earlier this month and challenged them that our days all together as a family are short and precious (for example, Judah is hoping to spend next summer being a counselor at his camp), and so I’d love them each to have a “touch point” with each of their brothers every day, in order to work on their relationship. It could be something as simple as walking the dog together, playing a couple rounds of Bananagrams, or ride along to the car wash with Judah. I told them, “Think 15 minutes of quality time a day.”

The change was instant.

Judah and Amie took it to heart and, more than anything, I think they realized how easy 15 minutes actually is. I’ve noticed they are already spending more time with their brothers beyond that bare minimum and bossing them around less.

Starting Monday the kids will each have their daily checklist Monday through Friday to complete and show to me by the end of the day. Lest you think my kids are abnormally helpful, there have definitely been some groans (Amie: “Gabe, wait until you see Mom’s daily summer list. It’s terrible.”), but truly most of the chores are already part of their normal routine. I just switched things around a bit and added in a couple more to account for people growing older and skills I want them to know. And like I said, it gave me a place to put the habit/skills they want to learn.

The nice thing I’m also realizing about these daily lists is they help me know how my own routine should look. For example, if the kids have skills they want to learn, I need margin in my schedule to help them, rather than just doing my own thing. Gabe wants to be able to bake independently by the end of the summer. He asked to start with homemade eclairs. I told him we’re starting with boxed brownies. Is that exciting? Nope. But I promise him when he gets the basics down of making a pan of Ghirardelli brownies, it’ll make following a more complicated recipe way easier.

We had activities out last night and tonight, so both afternoons, Gabe and I made brownies together. And he cleaned up after himself (my kids know they’re allowed to bake anything anytime as long as they clean up the kitchen after themselves).

So once Gabe had baked brownies twice I asked, okay, what do you want to try next? And he said, “Lemon cookies!” Now, I have personally never eaten a lemon cookie. Leave it to Gabe to choose something out of the box (literally). He told me he ate some at the church Easter cook-out and they were amazing, so if you are the person who brought them, you made Gabe’s day. We searched for pictures on Pinterest and he showed me the exact cookies from the cook-out, and I printed the recipe and added extra ingredients to the grocery list.

I’ve looked at next week’s calendar and written in that on Thursday, I’m baking lemon cookies with Gabe. Basically, I scheduled an appointment to help him learn his skill!

This is just an example of how I’m using their lists.

Thankfully, there are plenty of items on each person’s routine list that they can do independently, which gives me time to organize my closets and deep clean my bathroom.

Whew!

Now to the fun part. You may remember that last summer was the summer of creating a Family Bucket List. It was terrific. So we’ve gotten to start a new list for this summer.

It gives us activities to look forward to and to make room for in our weekly routine. David and I try to choose at least one Bucket List item per week, whether it’s something small-ish like “Eat out at Vicious Biscuit” (a new breakfast place we want to try), or bigger, like, “spend the afternoon at the lake.”

So now, on June 2, I feel much more ready to embrace our summer!

If you have any tips for summer planning, either with or without kids at home, I’d love to hear them.