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Summer Learning for Kids {FREE Printables}

By Melissa Droegemueller | May 28, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Summer is here! Are you ready? These practical tips about summer learning for kids will help you set up a season full of fun, hands-on play. Whether you have toddlers, preschoolers, or school-age kids, you can make this summer the best one yet!

Name Your Why

Are you a work-at-home parent, looking for independent activities so you can get your to-do list done?
Maybe your kiddo needs a little extra support during the summer to get ready for next school year?
Or perhaps you just want to spend time making family memories than planning them?

If your kids are anything like mine, you might want to go into the summer with a few planned activities in your back pocket. We certainly intend to have lots of unstructured free play, outside time, and afternoons at the pool — but we also know that TOO much downtime can lead to bickering and frustration for everyone.

Our Fun Summer Learning Plans

Every summer, I like to choose a few themes to guide our family summer learning. This year, we’ll be spending a month on space exploration to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. We’ll also be doing a habitat study about deserts and jungles, learning about plants and animals, weather, and more.

Throughout the summer, we’ll be reading good books, going on fun family adventures, and experiencing hands-on sensory play and science experiments together. And you can follow along with our summer learning on our Instagram feed!

Planning Your Own Summer Learning {FREE Printables!}

When I put together a themed learning unit, I like to start with the library. I open our library website and search for books related to the topic. We know we can count on authors like Anne Rockwell, Gail Gibbons, Leo Lionni, Eric Carle, and more. I also like to take my girls into the non-fiction section so they can experience the research process.
Once I have a large stack of books, I grab a sheet of paper and start jotting down activity ideas. I typically use the following categories to get started:
- literacy
- math
- fine motor
- gross motor
- creative play
- arts & crafts
Then, I open up a Pinterest and create a new board for the theme. I usually search for activities that don’t come naturally to me, like creative play and arts & crafts.
I make a list of any additional materials I need to pick up on my next run to the store.
Finally, I type up all the activities and print off a copy for the fridge.

Each weekend, I make a family schedule for the coming week. I look at the open pockets of time and choose 5-7 ideas from the activity guide as a “back-up” for the bored or bickering moments. Since my girls are old enough to have an opinion, I usually ask them which activities they would like try and make sure that we do those first. 🙂

As a working mom, I also make sure to select a variety of options — something we can do together, something my kids can do independently, a literacy-based activity, something open-ended, and something we can do outside!

I print off any handouts, gather materials, and put everything in one spot so it’s easy to grab whenever we need it. I also like to leave a stack of related books next to the couch for my kids to peruse whenever they have a free minute.

Summer Learning Printables!

You can download our FREE flexible summer schedule template (includes 20 additional activity ideas).
We also have a summer learning planning page in our FREE Resource Library that you can use to put together your themed activity units.
Rather have it done for you? Check out our Summer Survival Kit, and get six of our Family Activity Guides (6 themes, 240 activities total) to keep your kiddos learning all summer long!
Want to chat more about it? Schedule a FREE 20-minute call with me to talk through all your options.

Preschool at Home Schedule {Free Printables}

By Melissa Droegemueller | January 22, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

If you are just starting out on your learning at home journey, you might be wondering how on earth you’ll fill the LONG days with your little one at home. Or maybe you’re wondering how you’ll fit ALL the fun things you have planned into 24 hours! (Don’t worry–it takes both kinds of homeschooling families to make the world go ’round.)

This post will walk you through creating a preschool at home schedule that works for your family.

If your children are past the preschool phase, click here to see our post about creating a homeschool schedule for a new year.

Schedule vs. Rhythm

When we first started learning at home with our three-year-old, I had to adjust my expectations as a former classroom teacher. I craved structure, but I quickly realized that no two days were going to be exactly the same (especially with a newborn, too).

While I loved the idea of doing math at 9:00, craft at 9:30, read-aloud at 10:00, etc., trying to stick to a strict schedule just left me and my preschooler feeling frustrated. We found that a rhythm worked better for our family:

breakfast
outside play
snack
read-aloud time
free play
lunch
nap/quiet time
invitation to play/tot tray/preschool lesson
dinner
family time
bedtime routine

On the days we needed to run errands or planned to meet with friends at the park, we would simply move things around. My little one always liked to know what was coming next, so we started each morning by writing out the day’s events on our chalkboard easel.

See our must-have supplies for preschool at home!

Direct Teach vs. Free Play

It’s no secret that I’m a BIG fan of learning through play! I think toddlers and preschoolers need at least one big chunk of time for self-directed free play every day. However, some skills need to be taught directly (riding a bike and tying shoes come to mind) by a loving adult.

Each week, I would plan out a handful of activities that we could work on together. This might be sorting items by color, counting, working on letter recognition, or doing a science investigation. Once I had introduced the lesson, she could come back to the activity again and again during independent play time throughout the week.

Our best time for preschool at home lessons came directly after the girls’ afternoon nap. I would use their rest time to set up an activity, and we would get right to learning once both girls were awake. (The toddler often had a related “tot tray” or “invitation to play” that she could work on while I taught the older child.)

Download our favorite learning activities here.

Creating a Preschool at Home Schedule

If you’re anything like me, the temptation is to GO BIG: make an amazing, detailed daily schedule for your preschooler and dive right in! The trouble with going from no schedule to a full day, though, is that it’s very difficult to sustain.

My advice to new homeschooling families is to start with ONE thing and do it well before adding in the next element.

Make a list of ALL the things you WANT to do with your child, either daily or weekly. (My non-negotiables at the very beginning would be read-aloud and outside time.)
Ease into a new family rhythm by adding one new element each week.
Make a visual schedule using a chalkboard, whiteboard, pocket chart, or file folder. Talk about the day’s activities after breakfast so everyone is excited and on the same page.
Build in time for your child to be the boss of his/her schedule (free play). You can start out by giving your child two or three choices if this seems like too much freedom at first–or try toy rotation to limit decision fatigue.

In no time at all, with lots of parent consistency, our toddlers and preschoolers can learn to anticipate the daily routines and transition seamlessly from one activity to another.

You can click here to download our FREE weekly planning page and schedule template from our Resource Library.

Creating a preschool at home schedule can be a fun and simple process, if you take it one step at a time!

How to Create a Homeschool Schedule for a New School Year

By Melissa Droegemueller | July 19, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

Are you a new homeschooling mom? Maybe you are considering preschool at home or you have decided to homeschool your Kindergarten or 1st grade student. It can be overwhelming: from curriculum to to socialization, everyone has an opinion. Creating a flexible, effective homeschool schedule doesn’t have to be hard, though. Read on for a step-by-step plan to create a weekly homeschool schedule, and be sure to scroll down for our free printable template download.

4 Steps to Creating a Homeschool Schedule

Identify Your Child’s Learning Style

Every one of our children learn differently, and discovering how our children learn best can definitely impact our daily homeschool schedule. My own two daughters are both auditory learners which means we can “double-dip” — listening to memory work in the car or during play time. If you have kinesthetic learners, you can take some of your lessons outside for gym + math facts or spelling practice.

Click here for more about learning styles.

Determine Your Family Culture

Some families love to be on the go! In homeschool learning, that may look like co-ops, park days, sports and music classes, plus additional playdates and extracurriculars. While children can certainly learn outside of their home “school,” be sure to take everyone’s personality styles into consideration when setting up your weekly schedule. Since we have two introverts in the family, we try to alternate between “at-home” days and “activity” days.

Click here to learn more about personality styles.

Choose Your Subjects

A major benefit of homeschooling is combining multiple skills and subjects into one lesson. If you choose to use unit studies or interest-based learning, you’ll be amazed by how much content you can cover in a shorter period of time.

We also don’t have to teach every subject every day. We do math and spelling five days a week, but many other subjects can be covered with just one lesson a week! Since our girls are major readers, I don’t “teach” reading every day. We cover phonics during spelling and comprehension during read-aloud and history lessons.

Map Out Your Weekly Homeschool Schedule Visually

When we were first getting started with homeschooling (seven years ago!), I struggled with the idea that our schedule varied from week to week. Using a homeschool planner didn’t work for us, so I created a template that I could reuse week after week.

It really simple!

Print off the schedule template.
Fill in all “out of the house” commitments: classes, events, appointments first.
Add in family “cornerstones,” like naps/rest time, meals, read-aloud time, etc.
Look the available pockets of time that are left, and see what lessons you can fit in. Remember that young children learn best through play, and the goal is not to finish every lesson in the book, but to master one new skill at a time.

Download our printable weekly template!

Example Homeschool Schedule

All summer long, we have done read-aloud time first in our day. For our fall semester, we decided to move read-aloud time (and other fun topics!) to after lunch. Since both girls will have a heavier workload this year, we’ve decided to do our core subjects immediately after breakfast, when we’re all feeling our best.

Here’s a peek at our fall homeschooling schedule:

Morning chores & breakfast
Classes will start at 9:00 a.m. (I’ll start with Katie’s lessons while Addie completes her independent work. Once Katie has finished, Addie and I will do math and grammar together.)
The girls will have lunch and outside time from noon until 1:30. I’ll use most of that time for lesson-planning and blog-writing.
At 1:30, we’ll come together for read-aloud time, music, art projects, and AWANA memory work.
From 2:30-3:30, the girls will have independent reading time, finish up any school work, and play quietly.
At 3:30, they’ll be officially “dismissed” until dinner time.

We have gym class on Wednesday mornings, so our schedule will be a little different one day a week.

Making a homeschool schedule for your family may require some trial and error for a few weeks until you find something that feels comfortable for both you and your kids.

Do you have lots of questions about homeschooling?

Homeschooling 101 has the answers you need!

Get all the details and try the first class FREE.

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