Fun with Robots & a Summer Schedule Breakdown

School ended and when summer vacation came, I hit the ground running. I really wasn’t prepared to embrace my now first grader being home all day long. It’s funny how I am a creature of habit. To be honest, I had come to enjoy my “quiet time” during my almost 3 year old’s mid-day nap and I knew that was going to be taken from me. What a buzz kill…

I also knew it would be a challenge for me to keep Thing 1 busy so he wouldn’t want to resort to the t.v. for his entertainment. I needed a game plan. SO… a couple of days before school ended (after we put the boys to bed) I went to my google calendar and plotted out our whole summer. YES! Our whole summer! Let me just say, I am so glad I did!

I had scheduled calendars for big wigs at my last job, surely I could do it for my life. Don’t get me wrong, I had a daily calendar with big events in-store for the day, but I didn’t have hourly events. Before I rescheduled my life, my calender just looked like a nice “to-do” list. (Side note: This is okay and perfectly normal if you don’t schedule your life this way!) I think I went to the tad bit extreme, almost borderline excessive compulsive. BUT we won’t go there.

Here is a taste of what we do. Some Joliluja fans have been asking, so here is a breakdown:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday – we make sure to go to the YMCA in the morning to get some exercise. (My YMCA has a wonderful child watch feature – if I want to get some running and cross training in.)

Tuesday, Thursday – we have what I call “park play” in the morning, were we visit a local park and hang out for about an hour.

Every other Wednesday – we go to the library (after we play at the YMCA).

Sprinkled throughout the summer there are bigger events like the county fair, 4th of July events, birthdays, parades, church softball games, bowling, bon fires, garage sales… camping, etc. I made sure to look at the city wide calendar. It is great information to know.

Weekends are a crap shoot honestly. I have events scheduled in there like go to the YMCA (if we can’t go on the boat because if it is raining). Stuff like that. I made it so we are more flexible in case something comes up. AND yes, we do go to church every Sunday morning.

BUT almost every day, I have set goals for my 6 and 3 year old to achieve. We at least do one hour of “creative play”, 1 hour of “outside time”, and 1 hour of “family time” in the evening (which does not include dinner and putting the boys to bed.)

During my 3 year old’s nap time – (Side note: Thing 2 takes one good nap every day from about 11:00-2:00.) Surprisingly he is very consistent with this, thus makes it easy for me to plot out my 6 year old’s new and improved “quiet time” which we now call, “Summer Camp!” What we do during “Summer Camp” varies daily.

I bought three different 1st grader workbooks. Thing 1 does one page (out of each workbook) of every day. (They are fun! I am not a drill sergeant. Trust me!) Then we do something from Leap Frog’s Summer Camp curriculum. It has been so much fun! I think Thing 1 is enjoying the curriculum as much as I am watching him learn and explore new things. I get a huge kick seeing him read. He is SO smart!!!

When Leap Frog’s Summer Camp is done end of July, we may try out Camp Sunny Patch (or go to this page) by Melissa & Doug. I have been hearing some good stuff about their summer camp curriculum.

Moving on to what we have done durning “creative play”. Here are our robots we made today! Aren’t they cute!?!

They are super easy to make. All you need is some old toilet paper rolls, scissors, construction paper, hot glue gun/glue, and what ever you have that makes the robot fun looking!

Thing 2 insists he has to be in every picture…

I don’t mind. He is pretty cute to look at…

Like how this robot says, “Made In Italy”? Unfortunately friends, we are not living in Italy, nor was this complete robot made from there.

Anyway, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear how your summer “schedule” is going! Please feel free to give me a few pointers, too! I am always looking for fun ideas to make this summer rememberable!

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