Summer schedules. Those two words do not seem to go together to most kids (and even many parents!). And yet, I want to propose a plan whereby summer can still be somewhat carefree. (After all, that’s what most people love about summer.) Yet, our children can all still be engaged in learning, developing disciplines for their lives, building relationships and memories, and more.

We are night owls here at the Reish family, so I’m not here to put a guilt trip on people who stay up late—and tell them that their entire family should be up at six in the morning year round. For years and years, I fought my and Ray’s tendencies to function better at night. However, we are not ones to pull out isolated Scriptures and make them rules for our lives. The idea that “early I will find thee,” is definitely in the Bible. Then again, so is the fact that God is found in the night watches and “late at night on my pillow I sought thee.” Truly, God can be found late at night AND early in the morning! Thus, saying that one sleep cycle is more righteous than another simply isn’t true.

I’m not advocating a time table in which everybody should be on in order to raise our children for God! I am here advocating patterns and constances that make us successful.

For us, this has meant that for nearly our entire thirty-two years of homeschooling (until we had one in high school only, and he worked and took college classes), we have followed the same PATTERN/schedule year round for our kids upon rising. We got up in the morning and do morning routines, chores, and devotions, regardless of whether it was July or January. Then we usually read aloud together. Then we did whatever was on the agenda—school, work, projects, play together, have free time (especially smaller kids in the summer), etc.

We did this because regardless of whether a person is fifty or five, there are things that we just need to do all the time. These patterns have helped our children grow up with extremely strong self discipline. Our adult kids, at ages seventeen through thirty-three get more done in a day than most adults I know. And they still, as adults, read, grow, learn, and give to others on a daily basis.

How can you apply this principle to your summer? What do you want your kids’ summer to look like? Staying up until three and sleeping until noon? Then hanging out with friends until bed again? Or do you want to help them learn some skills? Spend some quality time with them? Have them read a little? You can determine the kind of summer you and your children have.

What if you had an earlier bedtime (ours is midnight for our teens—they don’t require much sleep!) and had them get up, do a few chores, read with you, and start your day together?

What if you had a chapter-book-a week plan for their reading this summer? What if you taught each child a new recipe or a new cleaning skill? Summer can be fun and profitable!

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“One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.” -Unknown

Summer is here! Whether our children attend preschool, private school, public school, or homeschool, there are things that we can all do during the summer to make it an enjoyable, growing time in our children’s lives.

Summer truly proves the quote above–that one good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. We have our children home all summer–either with us if we work at home or stay home with younger children or at home while we are working. Either way, we have all summer to be their “schoolmasters.”

I have a variety of topics to share with you concerning summer. Here is a sneak preview of some of them:

1. Scheduling your summer days (A schedule? If you have kids sleeping ‘til noon, you would be surprised how much more time you can have with your kids and how much you can get done, if you just had a semi-scheduled summer!)

2. Helping your struggling reader—this will be multi-posted. From helping your young, struggling “word caller” (with phonics, reading together, and more) to helping your child go from word calling to fluency to helping your children build their comprehension skills this summer so that when they attack various types of materials this fall at school, they will understand and retain better than ever. My master’s work is in reading specialist—and teaching reading, comprehension, writing, and language arts are my true loves!

3. “Losing” academic skills in the summer? Which children really need academics in the summer?

4. Summer “skills” books vs instruction? How do you know what your child really needs this summer?

5. Reading aloud and summer library time—of course!

6. Penmanship helps—improve your child’s penmanship this summer in just a few minutes a day.

7. Math drill—get a simple, no nonsense math drill that will keep your kids’ skills sharp all year long.

8. Relationship building in the summer—especially with those older kids who are home from college for the summer!

9. Implementing those things that you always say you’re going to do and always want to do but that do not happen during the school year!

10. Much more!

I will try to move quickly so that we will be through them all in a few weeks, so you will still have a good six weeks to work on things that are suggested, if you decide you need to. Thanks for joining us!

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