Summer snuck up on us and I wasn’t quite ready. I felt like I was just trying to stay above water with COVID schooling so once summer rolled around I did absolutely nothing. So here’s our Summer schedule for kids & check-in to bring a little structure to your home.
I love structure but I can’t handle rigid schedules so I usually come up with a few things I want my kids to include in their day with lots of options.
Growing Your Spirit– As you can see above I’ve divided them up into morning routine, spirit, mind, and body. We want them to begin setting faith habits so we have “Grow in Spirit”. We do this in the morning because that is what works best for us but find what works for you. We’ve done family devotionals where we are all studying the same thing and we’ve also done it where they can choose one of the options in that section as they wish but we are all doing it at the same time for accountability.
“Grow Your Mind” –will help get some learning in a relaxed way. My kids love reading so I’m hoping to expand their activities in this section beyond reading. If you don’t have a library card make sure to look at your closest public library they are a great resource for books. We also go to yard sales and stock up on books.
“Growing Your Body” section is set up to encourage them to get outdoors. My kids play outside a lot but there are days where I have to make them go outside. I know some parts of the country are really hot but I still highly encourage you to find a time that’s relatively “cooler” for your child to be outside because the outdoors really helps them emotionally and physically.
Heart Check-In – Then I’ve added a “Heart Check-In” to help us practice using our words not just expressing our feelings. It’s great for us to get a feel for how each child is doing. We have found to be amazingly helpful for my child who struggles to tell us what is going on before he has a complete meltdown.
The Secret to Follow Through
My secret to having your kids follow through is to sandwich these tasks in between their favorite activity of the day. For my kids, it’s screen time. If it’s not done then there is no screen time. In the Parenting Education world they call this strategy “When and Then”. When you do this then you can do that.
The morning routine and “growing in spirit” are things we want them to complete before their 10 a.m. screen time that lasts for 30 minutes. Then they have the rest of the afternoon to play and do their mind and body activities. Those need to be done before 4 p.m. which is their afternoon 30 minute screen time.
This works wonders! But it will only work if you follow through otherwise they’ll know you will let them get screen time even if they haven’t completed their daily tasks. There are days that we are gone all day so obviously, we take that into consideration.
I know how easy it is for me to get involved with my projects and before I know it there morning screen time has turned into 2 hours so set a timer on your phone or on your Alexa. If they are using an iPad or Kindle you can also set time restrictions within their device.
During summertime, we extend their screentime they get 1 hour of screen time per day during the week and 1.5 hours per day during the weekend. It may not seem like a lot and they’ll complain but I’ll be the first to tell you it’s so worth it. I love finding them reading and being creative. It’s amazing how creative they get when they have the time to explore, discover, create, learn, and just be.
You can download this printable for free here—>summer schedule
I use this one in our home with a bit more details —>summer schedule HOME
What we do with ours is I laminated the printable or you can put it in a paper protector sleeve. I have them use a dry erase marker so it can be reused daily. It’s based on an honor system but sometimes I do have to check up on them to make sure they are actually doing it.
On the weekends we are much more flexible. Though they are expected to do the morning routine all 7 days.
Have fun, rest, be flexible, set up routines and faith habits, and make sure you have some family playtime this summer!
