I've been in summer planning mode for the last couple of hours, and my printer is screaming at me to please stop printing out things because the black ink is almost gone!
Anyway, I've mentioned how I have a schedule set up for the kids this summer, complete with theme weeks, etc. I'm relying heavily on Brownie try-it activities to fill the time. I've found a website that lists all of the try-its and what activities you can do to earn the badge. I think they're great, not just for the Brownie to do, but also to include siblings. For example, we're going to work on the Brownie Girl Scouts Through the Years badge. One of the activities is to make/eat/study different snacks or meals that Brownies ate in years past. I'm going to have the kids make a snack for the week on Mondays, and we're going to use a snack from a different decade each week. That gets the kids in the kitchen making stuff (which they love) every week. And we'll get to explore different decades this way.
Other great online resources I've found are the U.S. Mint and the Danger Rangers websites. They have great activities--the mint has loads of games and lesson plans, and they involve history, math, etc. It's very easy to get excited about this stuff!
Our weekly schedule is going to look something like this: on weekday mornings, we'll do an activity either before or after swimming lessons. Wednesdays we have no swimming, so we'll be at the free movies. After lunch, I'm going to try to impose a one-hour quiet time. Hopefully, the kids will get used to spending an hour in their rooms reading or (if I really luck out, sleeping). I'm going to allow them to stay up until nine if they agree to the quiet hour. Afternoons, we'll do another activity and then hopefully go to the pool around five (I just don't want to be out at peak sun time) and then home for dinner around seven.
The "activities" will include a couple of try-its per week, the weekly snack, a writing activity, a math activity (for this I'm relying on the Mathemagic volume from the Childcraft Encyclopedias), a safety activity (for earning the Brownie Safety Award) and library time. Our school district has the curriculum online, so I'm also going there for ideas.
I've made up all these schedules before, but I'm hoping that this will be the year that we can actually accomplish some of it. It's structured (which we all need) but also leaves plenty of time just for play. Wish us luck!
3 comments:
I hope your schedule works out for you since you look like you put a lot of thought in it. www.brightideas.com is a fun site put out by the Mars company. It has activities on the site, some with the m&m/mars candies, some without. I've done some of their ideas myself and I don't have children :-) That's great that there's free movies, what a bargain!!
I never thought of doing Brownie Try-its over the summer! Thanks for the idea!!!!
I love it!! I insist on quiet time each day myself. I have to give James a nap and me a break. I let the older two play quietly together in one of their rooms IF they are dead quiet. Otherwise, it's total separation and quiet. I think we all need it during the day.
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