We’re almost a 2 solid weeks in to summer break now. Inevitably, I feel like we always go through a slightly bumpy transition period when we shift from school to break or back again.
Maybe this is my “fault”, for lack of planning or foresight…I’m not sure. I mean, we never really sat down and sketched out summer “rules” or schedules or anything like that for the kids. It was more of a, “Oh, huh! Look at that, it’s summer now. How about that? Carry on…” 🤷♀️
Anyway, I think we’re finally settling into a bit of a rhythm, after a moderately ugly first week.
Our (very loose) schedule has become:
- Kids wake up anywhere between ~6:30-8. (Asher has still been working out with his uncle in the mornings, so he’s been getting up early.)
- If up early-ish, read or do something until “video game time with friends” starts (Ethan usually has this coordinated- often from maybe 8-9 am). We’ve been letting them play for about ~1 hour (1 1/2 hours max) in the morning.
- Beds made/ rooms picked up by 10 at the latest.
- Somewhere between 9-11 am I have been taking a break to do something with them for about an hour. Last week we did the walk to McDonald’s for breakfast, sometimes just a walk around the neighborhood, and yesterday we went to the library. Hoping to maybe go hit some tennis balls, go for some bike rides, etc. Just “something” together for a little while.
- After that- I go back to work and the kids generally do their “stuff”. Practice piano, do their workbooks pages, read/play something (NOT a screen), etc.
- After lunch, it depends on the day, but I am pretty hands off all afternoon and just WORK mostly. They know not to expect much from me during those hours. Ethan has been biking to his friends’ houses most days. Sometimes they have piano lessons, or Asher has a virtual band lesson. Yesterday Asher went strawberry picking with a friend and his mom!
Evenings so far have just been loose, again, depending on the day. Asher swims every night Monday- Thursday, and Ethan has had the soccer tryouts this week. Usually they have some more screen time for a while in the late afternoon or evening at some point (with friends).
The library trip was Asher’s 1st time back! They got SO MANY books!!!
How’s your summer schedule looking? As much as I say I like routines, in general, we are pretty loosey goosey on things like schedules, meal times, etc. in our house. This little “schedule” has just kind of evolved pretty naturally.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for Webex meetings, so I don’t have to go in to the office today for several meetings that are on the docket! 😉
GRATEFUL KAE 
US summer holidays are so fun for me to read about – here, we begin at the very end of July. It used to be a 6 week break but it’s 5 weeks now, so back to school right at the start of September. I haven’t even made my summer fun list yet! 🙂
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Haha, I know- it is interesting how different the breaks are in different places! I *think* here in Wisconsin (i.e the Midwest) our summer break was originally based (waaaay back in the day) around the farming schedule! I guess many years ago kids would work on the farm in the summer, so the school schedules were designed to have from mid- June, July and August mostly free so they could do that. (i don’t know for sure if this is true, but I have heard it many times in my years of living in Wisconsin.) Obviously most people around here nowadays are NOT farmers, and those who are probably aren’t relying on their kids to run the farm… but the tradition stuck, I guess. I know even within the U.S. there are very different school schedules (for example, in the South they usually go back to school in August usually way earlier than we do up north.)
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Wow, that’s interestinG! And makes a lot of sense! I did assume all of the US went back early August, which is funny to me because we are right at the start of our summer holiday then. So fun learning all of these differences 🙂
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Sounds like a nice rhythm to your days without being overly scheduled or inflexible. Love a good library haul!
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Looks like a nice balance! I did this cake last year for Nick’s birthday (coming up) and we LOVED it. Another project for the boys. https://cupofjo.com/2019/06/best-strawberry-cake/
I aimed for a nice ratio of 50% free time and 50% activities. It’s going really well! Mean Mom went for the kill and programmed the internet to turn off mornings so the kids have been doing stuff like walking the dog and playing board games with each other. I have a checklist for the personal care items and making beds to try to keep that structure.
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Thank you for the cake recommendation! Definitely making that either tonight or tomorrow! 🙂
I need to get a checklist going again to help with some “reminders” too…let’s just say my standards and the boys’ standards on some things don’t always match up. 😉 I think a checklist might help – we’ve done that in the past.
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We haven’t hit this stage of life when we have a summer schedule. It’s hard to even think about what that will look like for us because we’ll need to find some sort of summer program or hire a summer nanny when we hit that stage! So summer basically looks exactly the same as every other time of year, except we go up to my parents lake home more than we do during the other parts of the year. I don’t remember having too much of a schedule when I was a kid either. We lived in a teeny tiny town so we didn’t have much in terms of camps and things like that. I had older siblings that could watch me so my mom was able to go to the office every day. She would leave a list of things to do, like cleaning, laundry, etc. I would bike down to my grandparents who lived just down the road or spend time with my friend who lived across the street from my grandparents. But that was the extent of my summer plans. I was always soooo ready to go back to school as I wanted to see people again and have something to do/a schedule!
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The summers definitely shift around as the kids grow. When the boys were little I had a lot of weekdays off, with my nursing schedule, so that actually worked out really well (in that stage of life). I’m sure it would be more complicated to figure out full time care in the summers!! Hopefully you can keep working from home though and maybe enjoy some better balance that way at least.
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