Summer Boredom? Enter Mom School

Mom.....There's NOTHING to do.

WHAT? CHORES?!

Are any of you hearing these same sentiments in whiny voices like I am? Does this annoy you as much as it annoys me? Something must be done. 

We have successfully de-junked most of the inside of our house. We just wrapped up a great season of swim team. I took the kids to see Phantom of the Opera because I think it is important to expose your children to the arts. We've been to movies, the public pool with the fun water slides. We have had friends over, rented movies, ordered pizza, done some school shopping. I just took my kids on Monday to the Arizona Grand for a staycation. All of these things are super fun..except for the de-junking of course.

Phantom of the Opera at Gammage

 Waiting for the show to start...Phantom

Mesquite Groves public pool....

 Arizona Grand....a little summer staycation

Aydan going down the slide...watch out it basically gives you an enema. Not kidding. 

I have pretty good kids. They don't complain about a lot of things and are generally quite grateful when we do fun activities. They usually are pretty helpful around the house and nice to each other. However, now that we are a few weeks into summer I have noticed a change............besides being broke.........

The kids are bored out of their gourds and it seems they have turned on each other and even me sometimes.

ENTER.....MOM SCHOOL

That's right. Mom School. Here is what the children at my house will be doing for the rest of the summer.

Mom School Dailies

Mom School must be completed BEFORE playtime.

§      20 minutes of Reading

Be prepared to orally summarize what you read for the day/or read aloud to me/ or a written on paragraph summary of what you read in your response journal

§      20 minutes of Learning

You Choose Numbers 1-4/ You may NOT repeat a number unless you have completed all four in four days. Number 5-6 up to Mom

1.               Work Book or Mom Prepared Worksheet…must be done correctly/ I will be grading…shotty work will be re-done

2.              Math Game/played kindly with sibling or family member

3.              Journal Prompt…… must have COMPLETE SENTENCES, correct punctuation, Each beginning sentence should be capitalized. A minimum of ½ a page journal response and picture. Picture must include details about the prompt. Make sure to date the journal prompt. Or Beware…you will re-do.

4.              Puzzle

5.              Cooking Lesson given by Mom

6.              Art Lesson given by Mom

7.              Aydan Only- Work on merit badges/Scouts

§      20 minutes of Exercise

You Choose ONE

1.      20 minutes brisk pace on the treadmill..no faster than 3.5, you may add incline

2.     Exercise Video- Mom has pulled a variety in the box next to the TV

3.     Longboarding/Bike Ride through the neighborhood

4.     Swimming (Mom will go with you)

§      Daily Chore from Mom/Pick up Room/Brush teeth/Comb Hair/ Get Dressed/ Bed Made

§    Something for the Spirit

1. Work on Faith in God
2. Read one Chapter in the Scriptures
3. Memorize 1 Article of Faith
4. Read a story in The Friend (online) or another activity on The Friend website
5. Watch a Book of Mormon Stories/Bible Stories Video
6. Learn a new Hymn or Song in the children’s songbook…Mom has an app you can listen to and sing along.
7. Do a secret service for someone…write a kind note, do an extra chore for that person, draw a picture

Here is what it looks like:

Each child has a folder with a calendar. They need 5 tallies a day to earn their allowance at the end of the week. $1 a day that has 5 tallies. They can easily tally the work they do each day on the calendar. I have listed ideas they can choose from on the Mom School dailies. That way even though they have to do some activities that don't seem fun they have a variety of choices. I have learned that when I give choices it empowers my children. It has been very important for me to implement this in my home because there is SO much that my children have no control over.  (like having to switch back and forth between Mom and Dad's house for instance...they have no control over that) This way they have control over their choices within a safe boundary. 

As a teacher I have access to a lot of educational games, worksheets, etc. I will share where I found the things I am using for Mom School. Most of the things I am using I found by searching Pinterest. If you follow me just go to my preschool or 4th grade board. 

• Kumon Workbooks- I bought mine at Costco. It was a great deal for a set of three. 
• Kid's Journal Prompts- The glass jar in the back of the picture holds a variety of journal prompts. You can find them at the link above. The kids can draw a slip and their journals are located right next to the jar. 
• Barnes and Noble gives children a FREE book after they have read 8 books. You can pick up a sheet at your local BN. It looks like this..each child has their own in their Mom School folder. Then they get a reward for the 20 minutes of reading I am requiring and it costs me nothing. 

For worksheets I belong to a site called Super Teacher Worksheets. I love it but it has an annual fee. Another good place to find extra worksheets is Teachers Pay Teachers. TPT has a free option so if you don't want to pay search there. I found a great math dice game packet for ALL levels at TPT. I am using that a lot with my kids to review math this summer. I have included the link to both. The really great thing about both of these sites is you can search by grade level which makes it easy to find the right level for your child.  

• Super Teacher Worksheets
• Teacher Pay Teachers
• Cooking Lessons- I am always present for this lesson in Mom School. I let the kids pick a recipe, help me shop for the ingredients, and I teach them how to prepare the meal or baked good. 
• Art Lessons- I am not an artist but I love art! Jan Brett is a children's book author and self taught artist! She gives free drawing tutorials online and there is a huge variety of animals or objects to choose from. I like to have my children watch the whole How-To video first so they know what to expect. Then we watch Jan draw and periodically pause the video to copy her steps. Here are a few of our drawings. She is so cute in her videos I love her! This is an activity I like to do on Sunday also because we are developing our talents. 
• Jan Brett How to Draw

• I love The Friend magazine. It has a lot of great activities that are fun and safe for children to use. You can access the Friend for free online here: www.lds.org/friend/?lang=eng

I don't have a lot of online activities listed here because I want my children to have a chance to unplug each day. I do not want our whole day ruled by the Disney Channel or BMX racing videos or the XBOX. I want a portion of each day used to learn something new: to write, to draw, to cook, to move our bodies. 

Happy Summer! 

XOXO- The Sunny D