Hey guys! You may or may not have seen this on my IG but I wanted to do a post explaining what I do with my kids when they’re off school during the summers. I started this a few years ago (when A was 1) and it’s been working beautifully for my kids so I wanted to share my thoughts/resources!

A few summers ago, I stumbled across this beautiful summer reading calendar by Hadley Designs. It’s a printable download that you can customize (as you can see, I customized it to my kids). I’d always loved the idea of my kids doing a summer reading challenge – you know, the kind that is sponsored by the library or something? But at the time, the thought of dragging my then 1, 4, and 7 year old to library to participate in the library’s program felt really overwhelming and I didn’t want to do it. Then I saw this calendar (I honestly don’t even remember where I first saw it or how) and I thought hey! This is great, I could just create my own “program” to do at home. And thus, mommy summer school was born.

Mommy summer school sounds really structured but the structure is there so that I can fall back to it if needed. Trust me, this is my third year doing it and there are plenty of days in the summer when we decide to skip mommy summer school because we’d rather do other things. The basic premise of mommy summer school is that my kids get an “assignment” from me each day and once they complete it, they can put a sticker on their chart. The assignments vary from kid to kid and day to day. Literally, at A’s age, her assignment is to get out of my hair for 30 minutes and do an educational app on her iPad. My older two kids have workbooks and summer journals but I don’t necessarily make them do pages out of it every day – it really depends on what we have time for and what we have going on. For example, this month E has summer school through the school district so she’s already spending a few hours in the morning doing math/writing/reading. So when she comes home, I just want her to read a book for 30 minutes or write in her journal about something we did and then she earns her sticker. D on the other hand isn’t doing much academic stuff this summer but his schedule is SUPER packed with sports (he’s actually my busiest kid out of the 3) so I do have him do his workbook but maybe just 1-2 pages from ONE workbook each day. E struggles at grade level academically so a lot of her work is actually 3rd or 4th grade level – I just don’t want her to forget what she’s already mastered. D always breezes through his academic work during the school year so in the summers I have him work ahead to the next grade.

If you look at the chart, you can seen that each kid has their own section and that the sections look like 7 rows of 4 circles. I generally have them work through every row of 4, so they basically it’s 7 weeks of working 4 days a week (typically Mon-Thurs). At the end of summer once the entire chart is filled, they get prizes! We also talk about and decide on what the prize that summer will be BEFORE we start on this chart so that the kids are motivated. One year they chose to have a big end-of-summer pool party & sleepover with friends to celebrate finishing the chart. This year, they decided on 3 toys/presents each (most likely from Amazon or Target). E already has a list on what her 3 items are going to be (some American Girl accessories and a doll LOL). I keep it fun and positive – this chart is meant to serve us and not the other way around – and I haven’t really had any resistance or issues with my kids not wanting to do it. I think they really relish putting that sticker on every day 😂 #definitelymykids

Anyway, that’s what mommy summer school is all about! If you have additional questions, feel free to leave me a comment!