Summer Schedule for Kids?

[LeeAndra]

It looks like I will have another SAHM summer since I still haven't gotten any nibbles job-wise.

I attempted to keep a schedule a couple of years ago before my son was born but it didn't work so well. I'm interested in having a 'theme' each day e.g Make It Monday, What's Cookin' Wednesday, etc. but that will only take a couple of hours each day so I also need to plan on quiet time, electronics time, chores, and things like that, too.

Have any of you SAHMs kept to a schedule like this? If so, what kind of things did you do? Did you like it or not like it?

Any advice is appreciated! I know we will have to have one or the kids will drive me nuts (and vice versa!).

[YepBrook]

I could never do that. I enjoy spontaneity way too much!

I do write out a bucket list with the kids of what we hope to do that summer. Then, I loosely plan a few things from the list each week. I like being able to change our plans depending on the weather or my mood.

[MamaBee]

Bucket list here, too... I don't like to be too scheduled because then things don't go to plan and I stress out. haha

We are also homeschooling through the summer... so lots of fun things will be added. J is all excited - we are going to be "going" to a different country each week - at least that is the plan... again, that was the plan this year and I failed... haha.

[jak]

I've managed to have all of our school summer holidays (6 weeks) off work for the past three years (won't always be the case though), and seeing as they're my holidays too I try to schedule stuff a bit... I print out a blank calendar page for the month (which I randomly nab off the internet) and then pencil in stuff - I'm not super planned, but I like to have one major-ish outing a week and a mini-trip (couple of days) somewhere in the mix. Other stuff, whether it be going to the pool, a park, a bike ride, the movies, baking at home, having a friend over, etc just gets pencilled in as we go...

[rach3975]

I have summers off, so I have to tackle our schedule soon. Luckily I have until mid-June until the kids are out of school. My kids do some weeks of summer camp, and in the past that has given us a lot of our structure. Each of the kids had at least 3 or 4 no camp weeks, but since those weeks usually didn't overlap we were always running somewhere for a drop off or pick up and didn't get to DO anything with our summer. This summer the kids are doing less and I made sure their camp weeks overlapped more, so I'm going to have 5 or so weeks to fill. I'm a little bit intimidated, actually. We'll end up enjoying the summer more, but I'm going to have to be more on top of making plans.

The kids and I all like our down time, so I need a schedule otherwise we'll end up doing very little and regretting it afterward. (I will, anyway. They will protest too many activities but bicker if I don't plan enough.) I'm thinking that we'll have 2 pool days each week, 1 kids' choice day (we'll rotate who chooses), 1 day that I'll plan an outing, and 1 day that I'll plan an activity or playdate at home. My kids are older than yours (7, 10, & 12) so I probably won't plan their down time as much. They all like to read, so every week or two we'll make a library trip. We'll do the library's summer reading program, and that will earn them a book of coupons for free and discounted local activities. We'll spend a lot of our August outing days using those. We'll make a few trips to the craft store so I have new supplies to keep them interested in being creative. When they get birthday or holiday gift cards, we usually save them for summer so I can take them shopping for new toys or video games a few times. Most days they'll have an hour of screen time before dinner, and once in a while I'll surprise them with a bonus hour earlier in the day, too. I'll try to plan in a 3 or 4 day road trip to visit relatives, and DH will stay home to work.

We also do a bucket list with the kids, but a lot of the things we put on it end up being bigger activities that we'll do over the weekends with DH. For example, last year some of their items were a minor league baseball game, the beach, the zoo, trying new restaurants, and a day trip to Civil War battlefields.

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[clucaswvu04]

We are really lucky in the fact that my husband gets to take a good chunk of his vacation in the summer. So 3 weeks is going to be driving and traveling to visit family in WV and MN. That's pretty unstructured time - but always filled with lots of time swimming and games with cousins.
Then my parents spend the week after at their time share so the kids and I will join them. That accounts for a month easily. The week after we are home I will probably keep relaxed - not too structured just a couple trips to the library and pool.

After that though I usually have tried 2 days a week that are library days, one errand day (so they can just know and get over that they have to go with me to the grocery store etc). Otherwise the only super structured things are at least an hour of reading, chores are posted for days (so Mon-Wed. Kid one needs to do these two chores their choice as to what day), and we have a bucket list. I try to have a balance of structure (cause I would just regret not doing things and we would all drive each other crazy) and spontaneous (because I also have a tendency to go over board on things and be inflexible if I'm not careful)


Cheryl

[pewtertm]

We are only going to go with a general schedule/bucket list.

I am plugging in our vacation, Rachel's church camp, and soccer camp.
I've also written down the opening dates of movies that we want to see this summer. And we'll keep track of what is hitting the $1 theater in the event we want to see something there.
Aside from that, we are just hoping to hit the following:
weekly trip to amusement park or water park (we have a season pass to get good use out of)
library, YMCA, zoo, park as the mood strikes us

[bexy]

We'll be home most of the summer too. Share with me some of your summer bucket list items so I cab get some ideas!!

[luckyme]

We don't have a schedule... but we do keep track of things like library activities, the pool schedule, etc., so that we can take advantage of them whenever possible.

This summer, we have roughly planned that we'll do the morning routine (breakfast, get ready, etc.), then some outdoor activity (either at the park or splashpad or to a nature trail), then home for lunch and stay in during the part of the day with the highest UV index. Some days that will mean some down-time in the house and other times it will mean going to the library or an indoor pool or gym. In the early evenings, we will go to the outdoor pool as often as possible. Overall, pretty low-key but still physically active.

[JennNtheBoys]

As much as I love to plan every minute of my life I hate trying to "plan" things for the kids. For the most part I like to let them do their own thing, and come up with their own ideas. The summer is the busy time of year for the kids 4H activities - Camp, Judging Days, Acheivement Day, the actual Exhibition, still some projects that go through the summer. We don't do much as far as vacationing... but we do have certain things we like to do every year... go to the amusement park, go to the lake, go fishing, go to the beach, there are festivals every weekend (each town has their own every summer) so we're always on the go, lots of fireworks etc. I personally like going for drives with no purpose and finding cool things I haven't seen before just in our area (new hiking trails, geocaches, lakes, parks, farmers markets etc)... ALL of it is spur of the moment, the weather is so unpredictable there isn't any use to plan ahead at all really. lol

[mariewilcox]

Now that Cheyanne is almost 16 we don't do summer activities. I work. She'll be doing her summer basketball and physical training until the end of July. She's also going to be working part time. We're going to visit a couple colleges. We have a week at the lake planned in August. When weather and time off permits we'll hit the beach (ocean or lake) and we'll hit Acadia for some hiking.

[wimpychompers]

We have the kids decide and each week is a "theme". This has been great the last few years. Obviously each day is not fun filled (ha, I'm in my senior year in college!) For example, they want a Harry Potter week this summer so we will do Harry Potter activities (simple ones) and watch the movies. We have done dinosaur week before and visited the dino museum, stuff like that. They love planning it and now that they are getting older they are doing a lot of the work too.

[Valgal]

Oh gosh, I was never good at that. Honestly, I don't think I ever even thought about it. I am sooooooooo lazy at the mom-thing in the summer. I did make a little chart where they could earn points for activities accomplished, more than just chores. The idea was to keep them doing different things. They REALLY liked it and still talk about it, even though they're teenagers, lol!

http://www.handipoints.com/