Homeschooling: Nearing the End of Year & Summer Plans

I seem to be posting only about animals and gardening these days and since there is more to my life I thought I would update a little about homeschooling.  We just took another week off.  It was not a planned thing, but that is the beauty of homeschooling.  My parents came for a visit and my oldest two girls went home with them on a Saturday.  I thought it was worth cancelling our school week for the kids to get to spend time with their grandparents. 

We are nearing the end of our "school year" and I say that loosely because we will plan to continue some schooling this Summer.  I do not think we will finish with our math, so we will just continue doing that during the times we do not have other plans.  It is hard to stick to a plan because my husband is always off some for the Summer.  This year will be a bit different here, though.  This is his first year as an Assistant Principal so his Summer schedule will be different and we don't quite know at this time what it will be.  I think he will have the month of July off.  That will be the time that we take Summer vacation and we will definitely not do school on vacation.  We also will not do school on the week of VBS, either.  We will have a sort of end to our year.  Some things will end in early June.  We will end our Spelling books for sure, but this Summer I want to try out some different approaches to schooling.  Yes, I am always changing.  I find the more I get away from a set curriculum or textbook the more we enjoy the learning.  It is hard to tailor make each child's schoolwork, though. 

This Summer I would like to continue Math.  I also want to have the kids do daily reading.  Lots of reading.!... I won't have to beg Savannah.  We will just need to make sure she is reading nightly or during the day, but usually we have to stop her from reading.  Sierra will need lots of reading to keep her fresh and strengthen reading.  If she takes the whole Summer off that would not be a good thing for her.  So, the math and reading are the main things we will continue.  Another thing I want to do is get Savannah to continue writing, so I am going to do this with both girls.  This will also strengthen Sierra's reading.  I want to check these Summer writings for spelling errors and discuss the reasons for the errors (spelling rules, etc.) and make an ongoing list of their trouble words.  I have heard that children that use this type method advance in Spelling much more quickly than using a traditional spelling curriculum.  Sure we will probably do some Science.  Likely, it will be natural Science as it happens or as it is observed in nature during walks or during cooking and household duties. 

As for those little ones.... well, we have had a very laid back year.  Caden is so ready to learn so much more than I have been able to teach him, so this Summer I want to really focus on him.  Sahara will tag along and see what she can "catch".  Next year they will be Kindergarten age (Caden) and Pre-K age (Sahara), so I am not sweating it with them.   So, that's my schoolish update.