Another Summer

Since I am in the zone where I apparently have control, I've decided to exercise it.

Our summer is scheduled so that we have more time for fun. That's how I roll.

{This is for Lollygirl and anyone else who cares... and for my kids to grow up and remember what our days were like (for better or for worse)!}

We still have a set time for morning devotional before Mr. Man leaves for work for the day.
The kids have a modified summer morning chart (with less piano practicing).
And we have our fun new game "Roomopoly" - to be explained later.
We are also continuing with our "Scripture Power" tradition from a past summer, but this time in the morning since we barely have a napper anymore.
We are aiming for some morning bike rides or gardening and then we have time for fun.

At lunchtime or afterwards, I am reading novels to the kids. (We've had some rainy days, where it's nice to all cuddle up on my bed and spend quite a while reading togheter.) Right now it is "Fablehaven."
Then quiet time, which consists of many wonderful choices: reading, journals, puzzles, workbooks, or "wondering" (loved the idea from this blog and totally stole it!)

This summer we also have new weekly assignments. Each week the three eldest rotate through:
1) Breakfast training (where they are learning to cook and prepare breakfasts so that next school year when I am in school too we can still eat something more than cold cereal every day)
2) Dinner helper (this is to prepare my kids to leave home someday with more cooking skills than ramen noodles)
3) Friend of the Family (this person gets to have some fun playdates - aside from the usual neighborhood constants - and when we do fun things together during the day they can invite a friend to join us -as we only have one extra seat in the van!)

Another new idea I found somewhere online (sorry whoever you are) is to have a Summer Bucket List. We usually make a list of fun things to do anyways, but this time we cut them all out, put them in a bucket and the kids can pull them in the morning or whenever they think they are bored. It's been fun!

Roomopoly is a creation my parents came up with when I was a child. And the fact that I remember it fondly encouraged me to create a semblance of it. I totally copied Monopoly images and created my own board game. Basically the concept is that you roll a die, and some spaces tell you to roll again or change places with someone, and the coloured square (real estate) that you eventually land on is the ROOM you are in charge of that week. Throughout the game you collect and lose "dusters" and as you do your ROOM jobs you gain more. When you have 10 dusters you get to go out for ice cream.Watch out for being sent to TIME OUT though! The kids were enthralled! I told them we weren't going to use our regular chore chart anymore and play Roomopoly during the summer and they were beyond excited. The playing of the game was fun too and took a while! Little E is the only one who isn't impressed with the game. He's figured out it's actually MORE work than his measly little daily chore! There are cards that I created for each room which tell you what jobs have to be done to keep the room clean every day, and then there are more specific jobs for each day of the week that can be done any time before dinner. I'm excited for this. So far so good. (I'm happy to send my PDF to any of you if you want to steal the idea too!)



We are NOT having ways for the kids to earn extra money this summer. We had a system set up during the school year and the kids bought a "big" gift with their earned money right after school let out. My one son keeps asking about earning money, and I keep reminding him that I already spent all my money on his earned toy... so maybe next year we'll do things differently. They do still get their weekly allowance though, so they aren't completely deprived.

Of course some days are thrown to the wind. We have lots of camping to do, some lessons, and camps, some visitors coming, and lots of fun things to explore in our new area. But at least we have a plan for those days when there seems to be nothing to do, and hopefully the house won't be a total disaster if we get our little jobs and needs done with right away. We also have scheduled weekly hikes with a couple of friends - and I'm really excited about these! The mountains are a beautiful place to spend the summer.

Unfortunately our "schedule" doesn't include a lot of time for me. After a few days off, I'm finally insisting on taking the time to exercise... but really it is full-time all day long! And with the beautiful summer nights, we all tend to go to bed close to the same time. But I love it (most of the time!) Soon enough they'll be at their summer jobs all day, right?!