Our 2019 Summer Loop
As I write this, Little Sister is two weeks old. We are all still adjusting to a new routine with this new little person in our family! Because of this, we’ve had several weeks – some before she arrived and some after – completely off school and it’s been lovely. However, as I’ve been thinking for the past few months about this summer, I knew that I wanted to keep up with some academic skills – three months is a looong time, especially for little ones, and I don’t want them to lose the skills we’ve been working on so consistently for the last nine months. But part of my newborn-survival technique is to keep expectations LOW and schedules OPEN – so how do we do both?
Our solution this summer is the loop schedule. This is not original to me – many others have used and perfected and created this idea, but when I came across the concept it seemed perfect for this time period. The basic idea is that you have a list of subjects/books/topics to cover, and instead of scheduling them each for a certain day & time, you simply rotate through them as time allows. It’s much more relaxed, flexible, and pressure-free than a traditional schedule because if you miss a day, you simply pick up where you left off next time; no need to feel “behind” or try to catch up. And if Tuesdays are eternally busy and you don’t get school done that day, you don’t have to worry that Math (which you scheduled for Tuesdays) never gets done. Each subject will be covered in its turn.
So! Here’s the low-key & flexible summer loop schedule that I created for the next couple of months. My goal is to cover ONE topic each week day during the summer; I have resolved not to worry if we miss a day, and to be free to hit TWO topics in a day if we have the time and energy. Most of these really don’t need to take more than ten minutes so I think it’s a reasonable and achievable goal.
1) Big Brother’s piano practice: we won’t be doing regular lessons during most of the summer but I want him to spend some time reviewing the pieces he learned this last year and perhaps learning a couple new ones in order to keep up his skills.
2) Middle Brother phonics: either a short time of him reading aloud (probably using the Bob Books that we worked through this last year) or part of a lesson from Logic of English Foundations B.
3) Space Science unit study: this is a study I purchased from The Good and The Beautiful a couple months ago. We’ve worked through part of it already but I hope to finish it over the summer. It’s basically just a fun elective because the boys have been fascinated with outer space lately.
4) Read aloud to all three boys: pretty straightforward!
5) Big Brother reading: I have a handful of readers at his level that we can work through.
6) Nature walks: this could be the most time-consuming part of our loop schedule, but if we are short on time it could also just be a walk around the block. Nature is all around us if we just look for it!
And that’s it! I think it is plenty for us this summer, taking into consideration my own recovery and care for our newborn. We’ve already hit a couple of these topics in the last week, and I am optimistic that we’ll be able to continue slowly working through the loop as the summer progresses.
Originally written June 4 2019
