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What Are Your Curriculum Plans for Summer?
I am thinking about my plans for summer. I want a little break from daily circle time and lesson plans. I also send home a daily sheet telling the parents what we did, ate etc... (I only care for 2-5year olds)
I was thinking for the summer I would just send home a weekly sheet with the menu and 1 special summer type activity per day listed on it. Such as Water play day or Park Day etc... That way when the new school year starts in the fall the kids and I will all be ready to get back to a preschool routine and it will be fresh and fun for all of us. I NEED A RELAXED SUMMER just full of play without always having to think about if we did enough curriculum stuff. What do you guys think? Are you planning to continue with your regular routine or do a modified summer camp type routine?? |
We don't do any preschool in the summer. I follow the school schedule and do breaks at Christmas, Spring Break, and summer. The kids need to have a significant amount of time where they free play without adult generated activities and adult involved activities.
I don't have preschool during the summer built into my fees. I could do it but I would have to increase fees. Nan |
Our plans for the summer are play inside on rainy days, play outside on nice days, sprinkler on hot days, and lots of sunshine and shade whenever we can get it in. No preschool here during the summer. :D
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I take on more school age during the summer, one of which is my own daughter, so I plan things based on what I want for her. Selfish, but my kid comes first.
We do water Wednesdays and will be doing messy Mondays this year during our morning outside time. Other days will just be outside in the AM. I'll keep things structured because I think the kids tend to get a bit nuts if I cut them too much slack. There's plenty of free play time, but structure also. I am going to cut back on themes a bit over the summer for the preschool set and I'm becoming more intent on focusing on watercolors for activity time. Lots of different things we could do with that. Science will happen outdoors and when the opportunities present themselves. We do a fair amount of gardening (even doing potatoes this year, hope we don't have a black 49!), and worm hunting has been the outside activity of choice for the past couple of weeks. Cicadas are also a hot topic when they start up as well as the rotten Japanese beetles (boo). Music and story time are a daily given, as well as circle time. I'm going to do circle time with the younger kids while the older are journaling. During nap the older kids have a mandatory 30 minutes of reading, then 10 minutes of math skill building. Then we will really focus on "themes". I'm thinking for the 8 weeks of vacation we will work on Storms Music 7 Wonders of the world Oceans Art Continents Animals of choice Subject of their choice Different activities around these will be working together to make posters, books, research, information sharing, arts and crafts strictly for the older kids. That's what is shaping up to be my master plan, but I may throw it all out and do something completely different. I guess I'll see when we get there. Wow, thanks for the opportunity to do my thinking out loud. First time I've seen all of this mess that's been floating around in my head written down. Hmmmm..... |
Since I'm just starting out and just starting with Funshine next month I'm going to somewhat stick with that through the summer months to see how it goes and if I want to continue it in the Fall.
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Originally Posted by twinmama: |
I ALWAYS took the summers "off". Most of the kids either went away for the summer or I had kids only for the summer. So during breaks (summer, spring, and Christmas) I never did any teaching.
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We take the summer off. The school age children will be there, and that just makes it too crazy when we have them combined with the usual crew. we'll have a more relaxed summer, with (hopefully) lots of outdoor play. We're thinking of doing themes of some sort and having a few centers set up, but mostly it's just a time to relax and enjoy our time together, without so much adult directed scheduled activites. Besides that, this teacher needs a summer break to refresh myself for the fall! hehe:D
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I have a weekly theme, and each day we do an activity related to that theme. I want to make sure my kids retain what they've learned over the last year so I'll do a "review" lesson/worksheet each day where we just go over the letters/sounds/numbers/etc.. But nothing major. Summer time is for playing! :)
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I run a part-day preschool from my home during the school year. During the summer, I call it summer camp. We play outside...a lot. We get out the water table, etc. I still do themes during the summer (simpler themes, like Bubbles or Ice, etc) and I usually will plan just one activity on the theme per day (usually I have several activities per day based on theme). So, yeh, it's sooo much more relaxed here and I love it! Like Nan said, they need plenty of time to free play. Have fun!
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We spend most of our summer time camping at Roosevelt state park. Normally we'd already have camped twice by this time of the year but husband has been gone for 6 weeks at work out of state so we're delayed right now lol.
I continue the abcmouse stuff during the summer, and year round. We don't do a lot if structure as far as "curriculum" is concerned just things that apply to camping, fishing, wildlife in the water, nature hike stuff. Normally we do a unit on amphibians in the summer as well. |
I am planning for the one school age I will have this summer. He is a sibling otherwise I wouldn't have taken him! But, he is 6 and my next oldest is 3 then three two yr olds. I need to work out some separate activities for him. Still rolling it around in my head...
The little ones are just happy to dig in the mud! He may be too but I want to be prepared. He has never been (gasp) tvless. I need to dig out my science experiment books etc. |
Since I am just starting out, I am planning on attempting to follow a curriculum through the summertime, so that parents aren't thinking that I was just all talk :) We will do a lot of outside-based activities, though, and follow themes that go along with summer (camping, the zoo, etc) and weather and stuff like that.
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Possible Daily Fun:
Rock painting Painting with buckets of water Bubbles Water table Chalk drawins Picnics Story time outside Trike car wash Etc...... weekly fun activities-lots of these are outside activities but not all Make stepping stones Bubble week..extra bubble fun! Make root beer cake/root beer floats-usually eaten inside Strawberry week Fun with ice Sand week Camping fun Make ice cream in a bag and other ice cream activities Ooey gooey messing fun week Scrapbooking One special treat each week to go with the theme We also do one or two art activities that go with the theme I don't teach during the summer.....summer is fun time, sun time, play time, park time |
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