So when August comes don't act like I didn't earn it....

My children are officially on Summer Break now. Today was their last day of school. Although I know it is popular to act like this is a horrible turn of events, I will swim against the flow as I love to do and tell you that I am looking forward to this break.

Not only will I no longer have to arise at 6am, but I have great things planned. We will be doing summer reading programs, I will be working on reading and phonics with 2 or 3 of the kids, the two oldest kids are going to camp for a week each, we have a trip planned, and I am going to be teaching the three youngest kids how to do chores. Soon I will have six good workers to delegate household jobs to, which is a very good thing. The younger ones love to be with me and help with almost anything so I know they are ripe for some responsibilities. The trickiest part of making this happen is....me! Teaching them chores means that I will have to stop what I am doing and take the time to go over and over and over the tasks that they need to learn. Sometimes this is really hard, but I know from having 3 other kids that help around the house that it is going to be worth it. My goal is that by the end of the summer all 3 of the little boys will be able to clean their chore areas responsibly. Almost all of the kids are going to learn to do their own laundry this summer as well.

I have some ideas jotted down for setting up an actual schedule for our summer break days, because without one I tend to forget what to get the kids busy with, certain things are never gotten to, and I spend too much time on my own pursuits. With a schedule you can be more sure that you will get to do all of the things that you wanted to do. We will not get to the end of the summer and say, "Oh no! We hardly ever played any games together!" or "We forgot to have campfires and make smores!" Although some people have schedules that become a burden to them, most of the time I have found that a schedule can be a really helpful tool for creating a routine and rhythm for our days. Managers of Their Homes is the best resource I know of for learning the whys and hows of creating a schedule for your life.

We have already been having fun working on our summer reading goals and playing with a Leap Frog item that we were able to borrow from the school for the summer. Although some of those Leap Frog things can really be annoying, this one seems like it will be valuable for my younger guys.

Izzy Man is reading many basic sight words, and is showing a lot of aptitude for sounding out words. I hope to work through Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons this summer. (Jake the Great has almost completed the book)

Our little tiny garden is doing it's thing, and I've already had a nice amount of spinach from it. What I am looking forward to more than anything are the red and orange sweet peppers. I love them more than the green peppers but hate to pay the crazy prices for them at the store. I hope to get things in order this year so that I can have a bigger garden next year.

So those are just a few of the things we've got planned for our summer. Since my kids are out sooner than most, they will also be back to school sooner than most. Just remember that I'll have had my kids home just as long as you, missie! Hopefully we'll both have had a lot of fun with our kids. :)