I was thinking about what to do this summer.  Will is in his last week of school before summer break and I kind of wanted to make it a relaxing non stressful summer with not much scheduled.  But last year we had a schedule and the kids thrived on it and loved it.  Everyone got a long better and I was able to teach them and have learning times without them moaning and complaining about it.  They were excited to follow the chart.  So I was thinking maybe I'll print out the same schedule and do it 3-4 times a week.  I still need to think about what days I'm going to do it and what days will be breaks.  But I've been looking over my pictures and journal entries from last year and I thought I'd post them here.  It has been a motivation for me to do it again.  Here's what I wrote from last summer:

Tues, May 24th:
The kids got dressed so fast and put a sticker on the chart!  They were so excited.  After breakfast it says clean up time.  They all brought their bowls and spoons to the sink and helped clear the table.  Then Tessa washed the table while I did dishes and Will and Adalynn cleaned their room.  It was awesome.  I think this was the first time they ever cleaned their rooms on their own w/ out me having to guide and direct and push and yell.
Again they received a sticker and they were able to see what we do next.  Tues was Will's graduation so we switched it up a bit and went to graduation.

When we got home we wrote and cut out all the letters of the day, and talked about vowels and consonants.  We made little pouches to put them in so we could draw them out every day and then we hung them up.  We also opened the fridge letter builder, and Will played with it for awhile spelling out one word after another.
For Reading time: learned 3 new flashcards from Bob words, then Will read accompanying book.
For math time the number of the day was one, we found one something around the house.  Then we got all the balls in the house (there was like 10 of different sizes) and we lined them up biggest to smallest.  We talked about big, bigger, biggest, small, smaller, smallest, first, middle, last...
For arts and crafts we made hand trees.  The best part was gathering the materials.  We went on a nature walk and collected grass, leaves and little rocks.  Then we came inside and set our supplies on the table.  I painted their hand and arms brown and they made the hand/ arm stamp on the paper.  The top where their fingers are is where the leaves go.  We put glue down and they decorated the tree with leaves. Then glued grass and rocks at the bottom.  They had lots of fun.
After that was reading time- me read to them.  Then they watched some tv during nap time.  After nap time they went swimming outside.  We had a very fun, eventful day full of learning and nice quality time.




Wednesday, May 25th:
The schedule is still exciting and working great.  They get dressed and do the things they need to do quicker and they are so much more helpful.  Will loves going to the schedule and announcing what comes next.

After each meal it says clean up, and I've told them that that means they bring their plates to the sink then either help with dishes or clean up toys.  Never has my house been so clean.  After each meal they brought their dishes to the sink, I rinsed them, and they put them in the dishwasher themselves.  There was not a dish in the sink all day and the rest of the house kept pretty clean too.  It was amazing.
For singing time each of them picked their favorite songs then I chose some fun ones.  I think they were My Hands, and then 3 little alligators.  Then we did songs about all the seasons.  Summer- fun to do, Autumn- It's Autumn time, Winter- Snowman, then Spring- Popcorn Popping.  Then we did rain is falling (spring), snow is falling (winter), leaves are falling (autumn), and sun is shining (summer).
For letters and writing time they were all able to draw their letters for the first time.  Adalynn drew the letter of the day, Will drew a vowel and Tessa drew a consonant.   The letter of the day was T.  Consonant: D, Vowel: U.  We couldn't make any words out of that, but we did find many words that started with a T and D and we wrote down some words that started w/ a u and some words w/ U as the middle sound.  I wrote down 3-4 words for each letter on the dry erase board, then Will picked a word from each letter.  With the three letters he wrote this sentence:  The dog played tag and jumped.  Will and Adalynn also practiced writing the letter(s) of the day using neatness and correct formation.  They did great!
Our fun activity with the letter of the day was to write the letter T outside with sidewalk chalk.
After that they had play time, then lunch time, followed by a quick clean up.
Math time the number of the day was 2.  We found 2 of various things on us and around the house.    I drew shapes on my crayola board and they named the shapes.  This was more for the girls.  Then for Will on the dry erase board I wrote numbers 1-10 with 3-4 blanks and he had to fill in the blanks.  He loved it so we kept going till we filled the board.  When we had one line left I told him if he could count to 60 then he could count all the way to 100!  And on the last line we counted by 10s.
For Art time they played with Play dough.

Thursday, May 26th:

Our letter of the day was A, Will drew E for the Vowel, Tessa drew M for the consonant.  They wrote the letters and then we came up with 3-4 words from each letter.  Will circled the ones he wanted for his silly sentence and came up with: The Flying mat with a cat both get wet.  We fixed grammatical errors and worked on neatness.
Our fun activity for the letter of the day was to make an A with beans, rice and sesame seeds.  We helped them glue it in the right shape and then they chose what they wanted to use. It was interesting to see their personalities manifest in their art.  Tessa just grabbed everything and basically poured it all over the paper.  She has a get 'er done and do it however is fastest personality.  Adalynn lined the beans up nice and neat exactly on the lines.  Very proficient and precise, she likes things just so and is organized like me.  Grandma Fenter says Tessa is like her.  Will did his neatly but did a cool twist to it.  He did beans on one side, sesame seeds on the other side (of the capital A) then rice on the lowercase, making a nice artistic pattern, which was very fitting to his personality as well.  It was fun.
For Reading Will is really loving the bob books.  We learned 3 new words with the flash card, then read the accompanying book.  We finished the first set- Book 3.
For Art time I think they did water colors.

Friday, May 27th:
Half day, so we didn't draw a letter, I think we just played with the letter phonics, sang the Starfall song, we reviewed all the Bob Books- so Will read the 1st 3 in a row.  And he did great!  He is becoming a really good reader and is getting excited about it.
For Math: Sorting- by size, color or category.  Everyone had their own thing. Foam shapes- triangles, squares and circles, Stars (for jewelry making), and pom pom balls- the soft ones of different colors and sizes.  They really liked this activity too.
I don't think we did an art time, but they might have colored.  We finished before lunch.

Mon, May 30th:
It was a holiday and we were all a little sick, so I told them no school.  Although Will did find all his old school books that I've saved and some of the new ones.  He colored the new ones and then we read all of them.  There were six and he read them like a pro.  That was about all we did for school that day though.

Tues, May 31st:
ABCs: Letter of the day: R, Vowel: O, Consonant: N.  This was the first time we were able to make a word out of any letters: on and no.  They wrote their letter(s) using correct formation and neatness, then I wrote down some words on the dry erase board, 3-4 per letter.  Will circled the words he wanted to use for his sentence and came up with: I ran with my net and I caught a mouse and the mouse wunted to mop all the houses in the world.  (So typical of him to say ALL in the world- lol)
Our fun activity for the letter of the day was that I drew big Rr's in (big block letters) on construction paper and they painted them.  Tessa's paint filled the whole paper + more and you couldn't see an R anywhere in there, but Will and Adalynn painted their Rs nicely and did a good job.  Then on a white sheet Will wanted to paint a rainbow.
Will read book 4 in the Bob Books.
Math: I drew the shapes, they tried to name what shape and color it was the fastest, then I had Will pick a shape and Adalynn pick a shape and I made a pattern out of those shapes.  Will identified what pattern it was (ABAB) then Adalynn told me what comes next, we did this a couple times then they made their own pattern out of the patterns we discussed.
Art: I Spy bottles.  They loved gathering a bunch of little things to put in there.  We poured some rice, put in some toys and stickers (rub in rice) then poured more rice.  They have looked through this many times to find all the items.

Wed, June 1st:
ABCs: Letter of the day: N, others: O and Y.
Wrote letters, Will's sentence was: I ate noodles that were orange and they made me yawn.
Activity: Printed out big N's from the computer.  It came with 4 pictures of things that started with and N on the bottom, so they cut those out and glued them to their paper with the letter N, then with the big N's they filled them with stickers and it ended up looking really cool.  I was really surprised at how good Tessa did with this.  She put the stickers on all by herself and put them in the lines.  She filled it up the fastest and loved it.  I thought she'd put them wherever and get bored with it but she really surprised me how good she did.  Adalynn was the one that lost interest so me and Will helped her fill it up.  Will cut his N's out and glued it to construction paper, then he had a theme going on with his stickers.  I love seeing how the kids work (their methods).  This was a big hit!  :)
Reading: 2 Bob books.  They have 3 books in each set, and they are color coordinated.  We've gone through blue, and today Will wanted to finish the purple books.  He wants to hurry and get through the kindergarten set so we can get through the first grade set.  So he wants to read 2 a day.  (His choice he seriously is excited about these books.)  So we finished purple and then not too long after that the mail carrier delivered a package.  And what was it?  Bob Books for 1st grade!  The kids seriously jumped up and down and yelled "The Bob books!!!" They were so excited.  Will wanted to look through all of them.
Art:  stuffed art

And that's where we are today!  So far I am so happy that I decided to do this with them.  I love it.  I feel like I'm teaching, spending quality time with them, showing them organization and scheduling... they are learning about helping out and doing "chores" except it's not considered a chore- it's just we all work together to help keep the house clean.  I love seeing Will love learning, I love seeing his improvement from when I was working with him when he was 3 and 4.  I love seeing the things the kids come up with and do.  And they are really thriving on this schedule.  They seriously get excited to see what happens next and to put a sticker on the chart, and to do the next thing.  They are having fun and getting along better.  It seems like when I just let them play there are many fights, but when I give them something to do like an art activity or a board game then we have lots of fun together.  So things are going well.
I feel like a mom and a teacher.  I have done so much research and spent so much time on what I am planning to do.  I have written lists, typed lists, organized documents w/ pictures, read arts/ activity books, made "lesson plans" and it is worth it.  :)