School's out for summer!

Summer has finally arrived as the kids are just days from being done with school. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Every year, I go in to summer thinking we're going to have a schedule, keep the kids doing their school work, have fun and engaging activities every week and then by mid-summer I inevitably let the boys watch 3 hours of TV  so I can get stuff done. My goal for the summer is to not let this happen, ha! 

I've been doing some research and have come up with a plan. We have our morning routine already mapped out.

• 7-7:30 Breakfast
  
• 7:30-8 Watch tv
• 8-8:15 Get dressed and brush teeth
• 8:15-9 Chores (Pick up dirty clothes,  make beds, dishes, wipe counters, sweep floor, dust, water the garden, pick up toys, etc.)
• 9-11 Get out of the house now that it's clean :)

I would like to incorporate some sort of theme every week to keep the boys engaged in learning. A great resource I've found is A Mom with a Lesson Plan blog. She has some great ideas on how to get kids involved in projects and learning new things. 

So, this weekend we're going to sit down and come up with things we'd like to learn about this summer. Maybe it's different countries, animals, science projects, historic people, or art. Then every monday morning the boys will take turns drawing out one of the themes. Our goal for the day is to plan our week and go to the library to get books about the theme. Then we can come up with food we can make (if we're doing countries), art projects, outdoor activities, and so on. I've learned that the more the boys are involved in the planning the more cooperative they are in doing the activities! 

Every week, I'll post our theme and what our plan is so you can follow along or incorporate the same lessons we're doing :) 

In the meantime, we've already started our "bored jar" for the summer. When I've failed the plan and I hear, "what can we do, I'm bored," they can go pick an activity from this  jar.