Summer vacation is coming up VERY quickly for us. I’m thrilled to pieces because it means no more trying to keep kids on task to do their homework in the evening, no more loading up all my kids to make 3 trips to the school each day (drop off, 1/2 day kindergarten pickup, end of the school day pickup), a more relaxed schedule, and a chance to spend more time with my kids having fun and teaching them some new things and life skills.
This year, I decided to put together a binder for each one that will help us stay organized for the summer. (And so you don’t worry about my kids being over scheduled during their summer, they will have HOURS AND HOURS of free play time every day — they need it and I make sure they get it. But I also think structure, goal setting, and learning life skills are just as important. There’s really time for all of it with all the hours in a day!) I’m getting the binders started with the basics and then the first week that school is out they’ll get to help me customize their binder a little more with what they want to add and by coloring their binder cover. Here’s what’s in our binder:
Binder Cover – cute summer coloring pages
Tab #1: Calendar of Events
- Each child will have a monthly calendar to write down all of our scheduled stuff for the summer, so they can easily see what’s going on and get excited for fun things that are coming up.
- One of our weekly events is an online art class that I’m very excited for!
Tab #2: What to do
- Here’s where we’ll keep their weekly “to do” list. If they complete everything on their list (Mon-Thurs), we’ll do a fun activity on Friday (go out for ice cream, go to the splash park, go out to lunch, go to the park, have a movie day, etc).
- I’ll also include any special tasks I want them to complete each week. Example: My kids that are learning to write will have a couple handwriting worksheets to do.
Tab #3: Summer Reading
- My older kids get to use these cute summer reading lists to keep track of all the books they read this summer.
- I’ve also included the Barnes and Noble summer reading program to earn a free book.
- When our local library does its summer reading kickoff, we’ll add that info too.
Tab #4: Summer Goals
- I’ve included a place to list Acts of Service that they’ve completed during the summer and this will also be customizeable for each child to include the things they want to accomplish during the summer. We’ll also be working as a family on completing a Family History booklet that I included inside the front pocket and we’ve already talked about training to do a 5k together as a family at the end of the summer, so I’ll be including the Couch to 5k training schedule. Ideas for what to include for kids to customize their own: recipes they want to learn to make, piano music they want to learn, sewing patterns, and any other skills that interest them.
Tab #5: Summer Fun
- This is going to be a “go to” place for all those “I’m bored” moments this summer. I’m going to include fun activities like games, crossword puzzles, special coloring pages, etc that they can pull out and do when they’re needing something to do. These will be different depending on the age of the child, but each one will get a zipper pouch with a set of dice and a new pencil and some fun games to play with dice. This tab will have things added throughout the summer so they don’t do everything in the first 2 days of summer!
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