Summer School

We're a few weeks into summer now, and no one has gone crazy yet.  We haven't even had too many "I'm bored" complaints.  Here is what we have been doing.

We set a summer theme of "Get Better," and decided to do things that would help improve us in some worthwhile way.  Mom gets the final say on what is worthwhile.  We came up with a list of subjects, or topics, which we thought might be interesting.  Our topics this year were: exercise, art, reading, gospel, housework, yardwork, field trips, cooking, fun, building, technology, learning, science, math, family building, servic, geography, fun, writing, social, service, and music.

We taped each topic up on the window, and periodically  forced asked the boys to write down some activities on each list (Like this:  "Quit hitting your brother!"  "What else can I do, Mom?"  "Go write twenty ideas on the lists!"  "Do I hafta?  Oh, ok.")  After a few days, we had quite a collection, which you can see here.  Oh, and I have to show a funny typo on one of our lists.  On line two of this list, I thought we ought to try cooking some foods from different countries, but Ben wondered if I was just wanting to make sure all our food was moral and decent.

Anyway, I picked a few topics I thought would be good for the week, and wrote the activities on sticky notes.  Every day or so, I change out the sticky note for that topic for a new one.  This very fancy chart hangs on the fridge, and the kids have to complete all the activities on it.

Today, they have to exercise for 30 minutes, read a conference talk, draw 1 or 2 5x7 pictures for our art gallery, and read any book for 30 minutes.

These activities are in addition to their regular chores.  Right now, I have all the household chores written on index cards.  I clip up the chores that need to get done, and tell them how many cards to do.  The chores are first come, first served, so it behooves them to begin working promptly in the morning.  This lovely chart also lives on the fridge.  I would make cuter charts (and I like doing things like that!), but my computer is not hooked up to a printer, so it wouldn't do me any good.  Me and scratch paper and markers get along pretty well, anyway.

So far, it's working pretty well.  I guess I came up with a good system (patting self on back).  Or maybe it was the promise of going to Krispy Kreme tomorrow if they stay on top of things?