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It’s hot here. Is that an understatement for relentless 100° afternoons and night time “lows” of 80°?
When the afternoons are 100° – 105° that is not the time for kids to be out bike riding and roller blading and scootering. They’ll either have a heat stroke or just sit around on the porch. Both are less than stellar options. They go out there in order to get lots of exercise and stay fit play and have fun!
So we turn our days upside down. We get up and eat breakfast, the kids do their chores, then they are FREE to play out doors until lunch.
Once lunch is over we have school till we’re done and then they can have leisure time in the house, either reading, watching a DVD or playing board games right up until supper time.
I am running my a/c now, but we’re trying to be very smart about it. The rule is that you just don’t open a door in the afternoon, not without a very compelling reason. That way all my bought air stays where I want it, and my house stays comfortable, and we don’t go broke when the bill comes. Noble causes, all!
Some of the secret, hidden, don’t-tell-my-children side benefits to this schedule are:
- Chores get done in a hurry or it starts cutting into play time.
- School work is not done in a rush, just to get out of the house to play.
- I have time in the mornings to get all the days laundry washed and hung out.
- If I want to bake anything, I have time to do so in the cool of the day.
Ok, so they’re not secret, or hidden, and you can tell my children if you want to, but this works out nicely for us.
I love the freedom that homeschooling affords. Not that I really know any other way, but part of my middle squirms when I hear gov’t school moms talk about having to abide by certain rules and schedules. I really love making up our own rules and schedules that fit us. Anything else seems so wasteful.
We take off huge chunks of time when the weather is fine. Around here that means mid-Autumn and early to mid-Spring. We may take 6 weeks or more during those times. It only makes sense. Why would we want to take time off when everyone else is? I wanna go to the zoo when the high is 74° and there are only 4 other families there, don’t you?
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This is what we’re trying to do, too. This is our first year schooling year-round (well, we’re always schooling, but this year it’s on PURPOSE!) and here in FL we’re having the same problem with heat. The hardest thing is shaking my own mindset of wake up, chores, school, THEN play. Now I have “Schedule Scheming” scribbles on my whiteboard and the days we head outside in the morning everyone is happier, we get more done, and all the wiggles are out when we sit down to finish up school. Homeschooling is just great! We have only 6.5 more weeks of our schedule left…woohoo!
Cardamoms Pod’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: The Operation
Great ideas!! I also love the flex time homeschooling allows!
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We do the full subject load in the Summer. During the off times we just do the reading and read alouds and educational games. Too much time in the day to totally not do school, unless we have projects or something else going on.
Amen : )
I am new to homeschooling, and wish I would have done it sooner. I love your summer schedule : )
So do you f/t school w/ all subjects? This is our 1st summer since hsing and I am trying to do math, reading(out loud to the kids as a group) and they have indiv. reading time, and some have language to catch up on.