Summer schedule for kids?

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MLourdes

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I am wondering if 1) you keep your children on a schedule during the summer and if so
2) what does that look like

My son only wants to use electronics all day. He will be attending bible camp for three hours each day next week and took a 3 hr class last week as well. His kindergarten teacher gave him a small homework packet and I have workbooks and reading books for him. We also have scheduled playdates, museum trips and a vacation coming up. However, there are days when my husband and I have projects around the house that we want to complete this summer and I could use ideas to keep him busy without electronics.
 
How about arranging playdates with another mom? You could schedule a playdate each week per household, so that each household has the opportunity to focus on household projects and say goodbye to the electronics.
Good luck!
An alternative is to incorporate your child into the projects. There will likely be more time per project required for this but it can be workable and a good teaching tool.
 
I get the impression he is rather young,
If that’s the case , then all electronic things should be out of reach,
Get into a routine on 1-2. Hours a day only …
Pick a time 4-6. P. M each day , negotiations not entered into once a timeline is agreed by everyone ,
You will have a fantastic opportunity for genuine family time together when you get you home projects underway , get him involved with design ideas ,
Get him a small hammer , couple blocks of wood and bingo ,
He’s a Carpenter
 
We homeschool and follow a year round school schedule so yes we have ours on a schedule. But where we follow a year round schedule we have fewer hours per day and less days per week in actual instruction time. It works great for our family because we have kids with specialist appointments that are a few hours away from the house that they go to in a regular basis and that way missing school in those days doesn’t cause much confusion or make up work. Our schedule is very low key and laid back. It has us up and moving a lot during the day do the isn’t much time to miss tv or games. We don’t have electronics in the van so they read or draw or often work in school work while I drive. Usually they all end up playing a game together. When we are home we do school work outside with hands on projects quite often. These same types of projects would work well for non homeschooling parents. Math while cooking, reading while following an instruction booklet while you put something together, Science while you work in the garden, History while you tell family stories, make things hands in, together and fun. kifs truly prefer time with parents and siblings more than electronics but only if it is done in a way that they feel included and wanted. If its find as a punishment or done in a way that makes them feel like they are a bother they are going to resent it. Make it fun. Go for walks and point out God’s creation to him. Bake cookies together. Just find ways to have fun together. Prevent the electronic habit by preventing boredom to begin with, but be willing to replace the electronics with yourself at least initially. In time he will find ways to entertain himself.
 
MLourdes said:
I am wondering if 1) you keep your children on a schedule during the summer and if so
2) what does that look like

My son only wants to use electronics all day. He will be attending bible camp for three hours each day next week and took a 3 hr class last week as well. His kindergarten teacher gave him a small homework packet and I have workbooks and reading books for him. We also have scheduled playdates, museum trips and a vacation coming up. However, there are days when my husband and I have projects around the house that we want to complete this summer and I could use ideas to keep him busy without electronics.
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I haven’t read the whole thread, but at his age (very early elementary), when you have home projects, it’s not going to be feasible to have him do a lot of improving activities independently. So, if it’s just a few days, I’d let him knock himself out on your project days, then make it up on the other days.

The class schedule sounds pretty heavy for a little guy, but it’s probably OK if he’s enjoying it and the whole summer isn’t like that.

We have three kids, 13 (almost 14), 11 and 3. The 3-year-old has been more or less choosing her own schedule (which involves a lot of play doh and making me draw Finding Dory characters), with occasional tablet time. I’m giving myself a pass for her this summer. We’re mostly concerned about keeping the big kids busy. Here’s are our expectations (which may or may not be met on any particular day):

–one hour of physical activity (pool, water park, climbing wall, DDR, trampoline park, rollerskating, whatever)
–one hour of math or science education (could be reading Smithsonian or Discover, book, doing math, watching documentary, visiting museum exhibit, etc.)
–15 minutes music practice for kid who has music lessons
–some household help and baby sister wrangling

That’s for days with no classes or camps. At least in our experience, even a 50 minute swim class keeps the day from feeling empty and unstructured. The kids are doing about two weeks of summer travel to grandmas this summer and they’ve done two weeks of enrichment classes (but just 90 minutes a day). A lot of times, with camps and classes, the kid comes home inspired to do more of the same stuff, so the benefit of the camp or class is much larger than the actual time spent in class. My middle kid will also be doing a two week Red Cross swim course (I’ll need to hustle some private lessons for oldest kid, as she’s done the highest level we have available as a class, this not being a huge town). And we’re hoping that the local music place is able to put together a class for their band camp (the kids play together 2 hours a day for a week) and I’d like my oldest to do a cake decorating class.

I should mention in the past, we’ve done two two-week swim classes for an especially water-loving child.

That may sound like a lot, but there are actually a lot of blank weeks, even if I manage to schedule everything I’d like to, and even the days that the kids have scheduled stuff, it might only be 50-90 minutes a day.

Summer is just a different beast from the rest of the year.
 
I make sure we get out of the house at least once per day. My five year old can watch TV while his little brothers nap. We’re doing two weeks of VBS, two weeks of swim lessons, and afternoon T-ball a couple days a week. On days those aren’t happening we hit up the local playgrounds and splash pads, frequently with friends.

We do have several weeks with nothing specific scheduled, which I think is good, but we’ll still get out. On a hot day there are a couple places we can hang out indoors - children’s museum, science center, etc. (Those are our number one request for Christmas presents and those memberships get used a lot.)
 
MLourdes said:
I am wondering if 1) you keep your children on a schedule during the summer and if so
2) what does that look like

My son only wants to use electronics all day. He will be attending bible camp for three hours each day next week and took a 3 hr class last week as well. His kindergarten teacher gave him a small homework packet and I have workbooks and reading books for him. We also have scheduled playdates, museum trips and a vacation coming up. However, there are days when my husband and I have projects around the house that we want to complete this summer and I could use ideas to keep him busy without electronics.
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My suggestion would be to download a few educational apps and let him at it. Not every moment of the summer needs to be scheduled. That said, I’d probably also encourage him to play outside if possible.
 
In my experience, the best way to keep a child busy without electronics is to put a limit on how much he gets to use electronics. Do that, and he’ll either use his imagination to amuse himself or else he will come to you for ideas of how to occupy himself the rest of the time. You won’t be begging him to find something different, at any rate.

Generally speaking, I’d accomplish it this way: Tell him he can “log in” and “log out” his time on a book, so that he will only use the time he is allowed (since almost all electronics users will honestly lose track of how much time they spend, otherwise). We are all little lawyers when it comes to these things, so you’d better define in advance how many violations are too many violations, and give him a warning when he approaches his limit. The penalty? If he can’t supervise his own use, he’ll have to live with use that you have the time to supervise. That will mean either using only when and where it is convenient for you to keep an eye on him or else only use the devices at pre-arranged times.

This system gives him an incentive to police himself. Experience at policing himself and enjoyment of the advantages of being able to police himself are very good things. If at first he fails, enact the agreed-upon penalty for the pre-arranged amount of time, then give him another try. In your ideal world, he will learn to monitor his own recreation time.

We did this for homework–from first or second grade, the boys were free to do their homework any time they liked at all, provided it always got done and rarely forced them to work past bed time. (We all mis-judge the time an assignment will take, from time to time.) If they never had any late work or any complaints from the teachers about the quality of their work, they got to supervise themselves. Otherwise, they would have to drop everything and do their homework in places and at times that were convenient for me to supervise–I made it clear I did not have the time or desire to nag them about their homework, so we wouldn’t be having any of that. With the exception of big projects that required shopping for materials, I never had to make them do homework. They made themselves do it. What a heaven that is for all of us!
 
Our youngest is is pretty social, so she will seek out things to do outside during the day. We have a library day, a tennis day and a few pool days, free play with friends, gardening and so on.

She likes crafts so she does these when we are inside, and her school projects or kumon work. We have a grid type schedule, but I am very bad at keeping to that. I have missed the mark everyday since summer started.

As for screen time, this is not a concern for me with her. She does these things before bedtime. It us rare for her to use electronics during the day…she likes to talk–so I converse all day long with her when there is nothing going on and I am doing something around the house.

Conversely, some of our boys now young men and teens would want to do video games all day when they were younger.i would limit it to after dinner. 🤷
 
First, know that it is absolutely OK for your kid to be bored. If he has access to creative-play toys, books, paper and crayons…then let him be bored! (If you Google something along the lines of “ok for child to be bored”, you’ll get lots of thought-provoking articles on this topic.)

In our home, things aren’t so much “scheduled” as it’s a rhythm. Certain times of the day mean certain things (food, chores, rest, free play, etc). Certain days of the week mean other things (baking, laundry, groceries, playdates). If you concentrate on building a household rhythm where he knows when you are available to play vs when he will have free time each day, it won’t be so much of an issue when you-the-parent need to concentrate on something more intensely. Electronics/screen time can be built into the rhythm as well, and that creates a predictable start/stop for him…he’s not left wondering “if”, nor “when”.
 
My oldest is two, so I don’t know how much my experience is relevant, but I’m home for the summer and I do try to keep a schedule. I encourage waking up at a reasonable hour (a little later than normal but no later than 8AM, which is when my husband leaves for work) I try to require at least an hour of outdoor play every day and usually include an outing. We have meals at a reasonable time and we are always down for a nap in time for Dr. Phil. We read before naptime and while I’m cooking supper we do art or puzzles.
 
Allegra said:
My oldest is two, so I don’t know how much my experience is relevant, but I’m home for the summer and I do try to keep a schedule. I encourage waking up at a reasonable hour (a little later than normal but no later than 8AM, which is when my husband leaves for work) I try to require at least an hour of outdoor play every day and usually include an outing. We have meals at a reasonable time and we are always down for a nap in time for Dr. Phil. We read before naptime and while I’m cooking supper we do art or puzzles.
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Awww, that sounds great.
 
KnitNut said:
First, know that it is absolutely OK for your kid to be bored. If he has access to creative-play toys, books, paper and crayons…then let him be bored! (If you Google something along the lines of “ok for child to be bored”, you’ll get lots of thought-provoking articles on this topic.)

In our home, things aren’t so much “scheduled” as it’s a rhythm. Certain times of the day mean certain things (food, chores, rest, free play, etc). Certain days of the week mean other things (baking, laundry, groceries, playdates). If you concentrate on building a household rhythm where he knows when you are available to play vs when he will have free time each day, it won’t be so much of an issue when you-the-parent need to concentrate on something more intensely. Electronics/screen time can be built into the rhythm as well, and that creates a predictable start/stop for him…he’s not left wondering “if”, nor “when”.
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I like this! I have thought of it as an “outline” to the day, but I like the idea of a “rhythm” better. 🙂
 
Best suggestions:
  1. Summer BINGO. I’ve modified Jessica’s from Shower of Roses and for pre-readers, I make one that has pictures of different activities. I never have to hear “I’m bored” because they have 25 activities to pick from each week. Some are for fun, some are chores, some are religious (saint word search, pray a decade of the rosary, etc.).
  2. One hour of electronic time each day. They can use it however they want – all at once or split up. When it’s gone it’s gone for the day.
I don’t care for “scheduling” during the summer. My kids spend most of their time outside. They wake up late and stay up late – and I’m fine with it. But the above help to keep them active and stretched instead of stagnate.
 
Get this book (used for $2-3 + $3.99 shipping on Amazon):
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Spend time teaching him to read. BobBooks are a great way to do it, also can buy used. If his attention is low, break it up to two-three 10-15 minute sections a day; which means start first thing in morning after breakfast, and just a little bit stuck to daily will take him far. Take your time and do not stress during that time. Same with Math. Find math games online with Dominos and other things, and have fun little math game breaks with him. There are lots of ideas out there for this. It will make school less stressed next fall if he finds learning is fun with you. Make a list of requirements - a little math, a little reading, a little time making something and of course outdoor time before he has screen time.
 
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