Summer "school" plans...

Since we're going to go ahead and finalize our "year" in three weeks, I am planning our summer schooling. Yes, we school through the summer, but it is, for the main part, games, living books, field trips, and fun! Cyrus will be continuing piano lessons, at least until his teacher has her baby, and I believe the monthly Eating Around the World potlucks will continue through the summer, plus we'll be getting started as Spiral Scouts.

Mathematical Formulas
I want Cyrus to continue division and multiplication, Cassia to work on addition and subtraction, and both kids to work on fractions and measuring. I plan to use a mix of online games, regular games, living books, and Khan Academy. I'll post about our favorite web sites, books, and more as we go, but I know we'll be playing dice games, Uno, Head Full of Numbers, tangrams, and loads of other ideas from Ordinary Life Magic, and I think Fraction City looks like a great idea too!

Literary Terms
Cassia and I are going to concentrate on reading over the summer, getting her ready for McRuffy Phonics & Reading in the fall. I thought we would try the I See Sam series, since Cassia is somewhere between a whole language and phonics type. I'm not sure how quickly we'll move through them, but hopefully we'll finish before the end of summer. Instead of I See Sam, after a talk with Cassia, she's returning to using ClickNKids Phonics, starting Wednesday.

Cyrus... well, Cyrus loves to read. I'm hoping he'll get through Indian in the Cupboard, and the sequel, and I know he wants to read about Native American mythology. I do want to work on his spelling a bit - he spells very phonetically, which can be interesting. Maybe Scrabble?

For shared reading, I'd like to actually read all of The Phantom Tollbooth to them, and Swallows and Amazons (at least the first book). Beside those, we'll see where our interests take us!

Scientifically Speaking
Lots of outdoor time and nature study, plain and simple.

Historical Explorations
I figure I'll take advantage of my kids' interests in Native Americans. We'll read stories, do some crafts, visit local museums, take in a Living History Day... there are also summertime Living History Days for the Russian fur trade period that flourished briefly here in California, and the Civil War, and so forth. I'd like to visit as many of these as we can! Maybe throw in a trip to a cheese factory, various nature preserves, a bakery, etc.

We might read about California history too, using some of the books from this list.

So yes, we have summer school, but at a much more relaxed pace. Even the adults will be doing some learning... I want to get my typing skills back up to the point that I can take a typing test for a better job, and M has decided he needs to finally get a driver's license, so he is studying the driver's handbook. Basically, you can't get a job in landscaping anymore without a license!