My son is considering swapping out his “warm pants” for shorts. That’s saying something.
He’s 3 and lives in sweat pants, people. Or no pants. It’s all or nothing over here.
Literally.
“Shorts” weather means it is time to shift from school days to… funschool days!
Now, I know lots of people school year round… and I know that lots of other people take breaks.
I think our family will find it’s place somewhere in the middle. Summer begs to be treated differently with its warm days and lighter nights. And yet, my kids tend to work best with some routine and a decent bedtime. They are still young– my oldest being 6– and kinda sorta lose their minds when they don’t get the sleep they need. (Let’s be honest. Don’t we all kinda sorta lose our minds when we don’t sleep? #guiltyascharged #tenmontholdisstillinthemiddleoftheninemonthsleepregression <–#longesthashtagever)
So, when we have nothing else planned for the day, it will be school and backyard play of some sort. If the pool or zoo or playground or friends are calling our names, there will be no guilt in leaving the routine behind and swapping out learning/playing at home for learning/playing somewhere else.
Can I just say… I’m sooo looking forward to what I have planned for my E girl this summer?! She’s six, and all story. I’m planning on keeping our current math and LA going at least a couple of days a week in the summer to finish it out (we started new books in January)… but we are going to focus on major fun with our theme: fairy tales! I snagged the Funschooling Princess and Ballerina Journal (see a flip-through here) that E is excited about, and I’m weaving in the infamous Fairy Tale Project from Brave Writer’s Jot It Down resource.
If you aren’t familiar with the idea behind it, Julie Bogart gives a nice summary in her book, Brave Learner— which is phenomenal, by the way. I’m so glad I have it as a resource at the beginning of our homeschooling journey! (Do yourself a favor and just buy a copy. You won’t want to give it back to the library, I promise.)
Basically, The Fairy Tale Project encourages you to read several versions/adaptations of various fairy tales, and illustrate and write a version of your own. By the time the Fairy Tale Project is done, the student has several stories and illustrations that can be collected and put into a Fairy Tale book of their own. Isn’t that amazing?!
We are starting with Rapunzel!
(I’m reading the version from The Red Fairy Tale Book by Lang, but also snagged this Rapunzel book that has 3 different versions of the story in it. You’ll see the “classic” version that most of us think of is actually the German version. The book also includes the Filipino and Italian stories: Clotilde and Petrosinella, aka “Parsley.” Who knew?)
I think the thing that I’m most excited about is the “Princess Camp” we are going to have during the summer. I have some ideas bouncing around about merging self-care, etiquette, lessons from fairy tale princesses, the contributions of past and current princesses on their kingdoms, what it means to be a daughter of the King, etc. that I’m going to weave in. Of course, we will incorporate fairy tale/princess-themed activities, a Royal poetry tea-time, art/crafts, maybe even some flower/plant care, etc. I think E and her friends will have a great time!
Now to get all my ideas fleshed out and organized and into a workable resource!
Between all the reading and writing and imagining we are going to be doing, I can’t wait to see what E girl is going to come up with!
Best of all… Fairy Tale Funschool gives *me* an opportunity to be creative and construct Story myself.
Who knows? I’m going to see if my 3 year old boy might want to make a tale, too.
I can almost guarantee the protagonist prince probably won’t be wearing any pants.
embracing essentialism 