Just to make things clear at the start, I’m not a fan of rigidly
scheduling my non-work time, especially in the summer. All year long, I am slave to the schedule of
the school year and school day. My bathroom
breaks are scheduled for me, my lunch is scheduled for me, every 45 minutes I
have a different class of students…scheduled for me. I love teaching, so I happily go along with
the schedule. Then summer arrives and I
just want to float and do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it. That being said, I have two boys, who in summers
past, have made me crazy by summer’s end and in talking with my husband towards
the end of the school year he said, “Maybe you should have a daily schedule….”
My initial reaction was “UGH! I don’t do schedules!”
After calming down and thinking on it for awhile, I decided
that it couldn’t hurt to try. So, I got
online to see if there were any other moms out there that had given it a go. I came across this post: http://prettyorganizedpalace.blogspot.com/2009/06/summer-schedule-for-kids.html
. Her schedule seemed pretty doable, so I took it, made some adjustments and
came up with a schedule that actually really works! I was a skeptic, but I am a believer
now. The best thing about our schedule, that
works for me, are the big blocks of time when the boys can be playing outside
for the most part and the time is unstructured.
The other thing I did when setting up our schedule was plan time for just my 10 year old and me to spend some time together doing a craft or an experiment. This has created some really special moments for us this summer spending time together on projects that we might not otherwise have done.
Here is what our schedule looks like:
