80) Summer Camp Series

Unbelievably the girls only have 2 more weeks of preschool left! That means that in two weeks we will officially be on summer vacations. I have mixed feeling about this. When I was teacher I used to look forward every year to summer break only to find that I would spend the first few weeks sort of lost. Without my normal schedule and I was mostly overwhelmed with the freedom to do whatever. After a few weeks I would usually fall into the rhythm of summer and all would be well again. Once I had the girls, I found the transition to summer even harder. With the girls, the glorious days of late sunsets started to feel really long. Without our normal school year routine I started to find the days really hard to fill. After a few weeks of floundering I would usually realize that we needed a plan, a schedule, something to keep us all on track. The kids needed to wake up in the morning and have some idea of what the day was going to look like. I needed something to fall back on when everyone got grumpy, myself included. So I created a loose weekly schedule giving each day a theme. I wanted the schedule to be enough to give us some direction without over planning our summer and not leaving room for spontaneous summer fun. So the last few weeks I have been updating our schedule a little and thought that I would share it here. Starting in just a few weeks I am hoping to share a weekly post with a schedule for the upcoming week. Each week will include activities (some new, some we have done on here before) that are really just a suggestion, a starting point, somewhere to go to when you need a plan. I will write each activity as open ended as possible so that it can be applied or altered slightly to fit lots of families and kids of all ages. As always, this newest series will be a work in progress and I would love any help, ideas or suggestions! What is your favorite summer activity? What was your favorite thing to do in the summer when you were a kid?