Summer Reading and other plans

Here on the cul-de-sac, school work has to end for the summer, because once the neighbors are sprung from school it is too hard, and almost cruel, to try to keep my children at their desks.  We learned this last year, and we learned it together, so the older ones have worked hard to stay on track so that our 36 week curriculum would finish up in mid June.  Guess what?  Tomorrow will be our last day of school!  I can’t believe that we have really succeeded in homeschooling for anothe year.

Our summer plans include neighborhood swim team (love it!), dive practice, one week of tennis camp and some family down time and travel to visit with grandparents, with as many day trips to the beach as I can squeeze in.  Our car is already full of sand, which is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned!

I am going to assign summer reading, which will be to free read from a good book for at least 20 minutes a day.  This will be a good thing to do in the AC during the hottest part of the day.  To that end, I looked up the book lists from the school I attended as a child.  I started school there in 5th grade and I will never forget the excitement on entering the well stocked library which held a place of high honor within the school building, it was almost everyone’s favorite place, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about a school.  Lucky for us, the book lists are available on the school website, so we can all benefit from the work of the great librarians and teachers there.  I am going to hand these lists to my children and let them loose in the public library this summer.

The next question is what to read myself.  I am reading mostly electronically these days, but that is not great for the beach, so I may want to buy some books.  My husband just started 1861, so I may join him in reading that, it will prepare me for our study of the civil war next year.

What are your summer plans, reading and otherwise?