Ready... Set... Summer?

Oh what do you do in the summertime... when your house is full of kids?

In the past, my summers were pretty hard to manage.  I was either pregnant or nursing for six years straight.  Focusing on growing babies and keeping them alive past one year did not leave me a lot of time to think about doing anything else.  I struggled to get out of the house and to not rely on screens to keep my toddlers occupied without giant messes that stressed me out.  I was really grateful to my brother for rescuing my oldest child from my toddler/baby world by taking him on outings with his family during that time.  The main event every summer was going to visit our family in Utah and other than that I was pretty lazy.  Sometimes I would buy one of those big books of school worksheets with the intention of having my kids work in it everyday.  I paid around $8 for them to work about 4 pages out of it maybe 2 or 3 times PER CHILD.  That means I paid $24 for 3 different grade levels and used about 12-16 pages total.  What a waste.

To help get us out of the house more, I made a goal last year to write down activities to do on a schedule for the week every week.  I committed to myself that I only needed to spend 2 hours doing the outing and that made it easier to stick to our plan.  We had purchased passes to the Safari Park Zoo for the year (with parking) so I wanted to go at least once a week.  Plus the beach was on the list.  For several years I went to the beach only once a year or sometimes not at all.  This was mostly because my little ones could not swim--1 mom and 3 potentials for drowning are not a good combination.  Fortunately, I got my kids swimming lessons so I wouldn't be afraid to take them once a week finally.  We were also lucky to have someone at church pass a sign up around to all the pool owners willing to have people come over on Tuesday each week.  Only a couple people took a turn twice and we could visit the pool once a week too.  It was an awesome summer last year.

Instead of buying an expensive worksheet book I pulled out a blank composition notebook and wrote "Family Journal" on it.  I thought, "If I get them to write a journal entry, maybe a few sentences about what we did on our outings and draw a picture, then they are getting something educational out of it right?"  Boy, was that difficult.  My oldest ones agonized over what to write and my younger ones dictated long things to me that barely talked about what we did and then drew a picture of what they talked about.  Well, I did get them to write a couple times so that is something.  We filled about 10 pages of the notebook.  So yeah.  Pretty much the same amount of effort and consistency.  But I did get them out of the house more and we loved it.  I am definitely planning to do a similar goal of scheduling outings this year.  But I have been wondering, "How will I help them to keep up on their math and writing skills?"

Out of the blue...a couple weeks ago I got an email from someone asking if I would consider doing guest content on my blog.  I was actually extremely flattered.  I feel like a very, very small fish in this ginormous internet pond even if I have been trying to swim around a little more in Pinterest, and Etsy.  So I am pleased to introduce the few of you who read this to Education.com.  I looked through their website and it is very easy to navigate and filled with plenty of great content.  They have free printable worksheets, learning games, and even simple lesson explanations of the skills.

Warmer weather is right around the corner. Why not celebrate with some summery reading practice? For little ones, read this with them to promote early word and shape recognition. Visit Education.com for more learning games, resources, and activities.

If you have had similar experiences to mine then you probably know what I am talking about.  So how am I going to make sure they actually do some of these worksheets?  Well fortunately, I got back into my chore chart habit a few months ago.  Remember my post about teaching my kids to do chores?  My youngest is 4 so it was time to get back to the original way of doing it.  That first version with the "Have To" and the "Can Do" lists really works well for the younger kids.  And I really had to make 2 separate ones because the 6 year old needed to work on his chore skills too.  My 10 year old enjoyed helping me make a couple "wallets" out of card stock to hold their dollars and we taped them to the wall of their bedroom.

As you can see, I personalized them.  I let them pick their favorite colors for the highlights and then I let them pick a bathroom chore to learn.  When I had one child I was ambitious enough to teach him to clean the whole bathroom but now I have 5 kids... so they can share the bathroom chores.  Here is a generic version I made in case you would like to use this for yourself

I learned from the theory of motivation that we are not just motivated by pleasure or pain but also by what we know to be true and by having choices.  I use this knowledge to focus on helping them know that they CAN do their chores and that they have CONTROL over their choice to do them.  When my youngest says it is hard I say "I know it is hard and you can do it!"  When he cries that he doesn't want to do it I reply, "You don't have to do it.  You just don't get screens until you do."  Then I walk away and let him decide if he wants to do it and get screens.  About 90% of the time he decides to do it about 10 minutes later.  The other 10% he ends up taking a nap and then doing it when he wakes up.  I don't make my standards impossibly high either.  For the first month I did help them with each chore and focused on how they could get it done on their own but I could be available to help them for a minute or two.
This is how the 4 year old made his bed completely on his own this morning:

4 year old bed making skill

It is a sheet because he didn't want the big blanket.  He likes his baby blankets still (which are piled up on his pillow) and he is warm enough at night so I can let it be that way until he is ready to trade for a bigger blanket.
Here is how the 6 year old made his bed entirely on his own this morning:

6 year old bed making skill

I love that he lines his dolls up on his pillow there and his precious 10 color pen that he purchased yesterday is sitting in a place of honor where he can access it when he is ready to draw.

I also added in a couple ways to earn dollars for "non-chore" skills that my young kids need to work on as well.  Playing nicely together outside for 30 minutes and playing a board game or card game nicely (no tantrums or fighting) for 30 minutes.  The learning curve has taken a month but my young boys finally don't whine that making their bed is hard work or brushing their teeth is hard work--at least not every day.  As a side note, for me, some days making dinner feels as difficult as lifting a mountain. while others I can put together a 3 course meal with ease, so I can relate and have some compassion for their perspective.

I also found that for my older kids, who don't need the dollar system, it still helps for them to have a visible checklist to know what I need them to get done.  So I created a morning and evening checklist for them and put some ambiguous things like "Put away 10 things" for the bedroom and "Put away 15 items" for the general house and "1 Kitchen chore."  They get to control a lot about those directions like which items they put away and which kitchen chore they do (which can include preparing a meal for the family).  They are old enough to have that kind of freedom.  Plus, I could put more personal reminders on there for acne care and flouride application.

I have a separate one for the middle child too which is like a combination of the Responsible kid checklist and the younger kid checklist.  She is young enough to still need the dollar system but old enough to have more chores for morning and evening so that is all the explanation I want to give right now.

I realized the need to make a homework slot on the younger kid's "have to" list because next year they will be doing homework and I want to start the learning curve on that NOW when I have 6 more hours to help them come to terms with it.  The best thing I have learned about teaching young kids work is to keep it simple and focus on one thing at a time.  That is why I am excited about  Education.com.  This website has free printable worksheets from pre-k up to 5th grade.  No need to shell out $30 for 4 different grade levels.  You can print a worksheet as needed.  This is the perfect answer for me and my family.

In the past when I tried putting a big book in front of my child and asked him to work on a page, it was intimidating.  If he didn't like the page he would want to flip through the book and then we spent 10 minutes just trying to find one that looked good to him.  Instead I can print a couple pages or just 5 for the week like the teachers do for homework packets and tell him we will work on one a day.  Plus their website has games and explanations for the skills.  Even my older kids can keep up on their math and reading comprehension skills and be better prepared for next year.  A lot of you probably know about Starfall and PBS kids websites and I love those too.  It is always nice to have some variety and choices.  I love free content.  Let me know what you do to get out of the house and keep up on your kid's learning during the summer in the comments.  I hope you have a great summer!