Stress Free Summer 2- Activity Passports. Avoiding the phrase "I'm bored!" All summer long!

As many of you know, my 10 year-old nephew lives with us for the better part of the summer each year. He will be here in less than a week. He's a wild little boy with beautiful eyes and the holder of a special place in my heart. I love him. And, quite often?

He drives me nuts.

You see, for some reason, this young boy feels the need to be entertained daily. Every hour. Every minute. The previous summers he has spent with us he has expected daily trips to the zoo or the park or the water park, or visits to a friend's, or visits from a friend, or a trip to the movies, or brand new video games, or trips to the Children's Museum, or something new and grand and different and life changing every single solitary day! ...I can't, I just...I can't... There is NO way I can meet all of these demands requests.

This summer, while considering how I may indeed tie him up and gag him if he repeatedly tells me he's bored and/or rolls his eyes and stomps his feet when I yell, "Nothing!" in response to his repeated "What are we doing today?" questions, I decided to be proactive.

While browsing one of my most favorite homeschool websites, I discovered these cute little passports this blog author and homeschool momma used in a geography unit with her children. I loved the idea of recording a learning objective and then stamping the objective in a "passport" once the objective was met.  I decided to create one for my wild boy, which will be met with much grumbling and complaining. Good thing I have 2 years of parenting and several years teaching experience under my belt which have fully prepared me to not care at all about either of these responses.

Now, the "Passport" I created is not cute at all. In fact it's just three different pages with lists of activities, followed by a recording/stamping page, all bound together in a three-ring folder. You could totally put it into any format you want, though, and even add pictures and clip-art. I did not, but my nephew is quite the little artist so I will tell him to jazz up his folder and the pages with whatever he sees fit! This could be modified for younger children by using pictures of activities coupled with words.

Each page is a different category: Math, Literacy and Free Choice. I chose math and literacy because he still needs to work on some school related objectives during the summer to help his success during the school year, and free choice because he can never seem to think of what to do in his spare time. Which results in him asking me the aforementioned question constantly, which results in me locating the duct tape and threatening his existence, which results in really just a negative atmosphere for everyone.

Anyway, on each page, I listed 12+ ideas that fall in the category, with space to add more as we think of them. He then chooses from the ideas and records what he wants to do that day in the passport section. Requirements are that he must choose at least one objective from reading and math each day, and then he can do whatever he wishes from free choice the rest of the day. He is not allowed to say he is bored because he always has options before him of how to spend his time. At the end of the day, I'll stamp his passport for him, and by the end of the summer, he'll have quite a nice little log (and some cool projects) to show for what he did all summer. Some projects are lengthy and will take more than one day to finish. That. Is. The. Point. :) Oh, and also he'll be enriched by learning and trying new things, yada yada yada.

I tried to make it as fun and creative as possible. Here are some of the activities I listed for him in literacy:

Literacy Passport Destinations:

• Write a play or puppet show and then make the puppets or props

• Make a comic book

• Write a poem

• Write a story

• Make a book with illustrations, a cover, a title page, and an author page
• Make a dictionary of made-up words- don't forget to use ABC order and to tell what part of speech each word is and to use it in a sentence!

Mathematics Passport Destinations: (Disclaimer- is there a way to be fun and creative with math objectives? Someone help me come up with more fun ideas!!)

Mathematics Passport Destinations:

• Choose a math activity from softschools.com- 20 minutes
• Play Number Munchers- at least 15 minutes
• Sort Number Cards by multiples
• Write and solve at least 5 word problems
• Write a math story using at least 5 math vocabulary words

And then Free Choice consists of things he loves to do like play the Wii, draw, arts and crafts, making his own snack, playing outdoors, etc.  I'm sorry I don't know how to give you a PDF copy of my Passport yet, but I assure you that the lists I showed are really all it is. Oh- and the stamping page looks like this:

Passport Stamp Page

Date_________________

1. Activity_________________________________

2. Activity_________________________________

3. Activity_________________________________

4. Activity_________________________________

I just stamp the end of the line when he finishes the activity.

I really hope this, and the other fun stuff we're doing this summer, which I'll highlight tomorrow, will be enough for me to avoid the dreaded phrase. We'll see! I did stock up on duct tape just in case.

Oh, and here's the link to the inspirational website!

Wish me luck!

Stress- Free Summer 1

Even though I haven't taught formally in a classroom since the early beginning of last school year, I still consider myself a teacher and run on teacher-time. That means summer is supposed to be laid back and stress free. No meetings to attend, no IEPs to write, no classroom set-up to configure- just relaxation. Well...with two young children in the house and a 10 year-old Texan on his way soon, that simply is not my reality! Plus? I don't do too well on relaxed and casual schedules. Part of what I loved about teaching (aside from getting to hang out with sweet kids everyday) was the order and structure of the classroom environment. I am a firm believer that structure and organization are the best components and most necessary ingredients to a successful classroom environment. Not because it keeps children under control and in a box, but very conversely, because it gives children the freedom to learn, roam, express themselves, try new things- all in an environment that is predictable (like- they know where to find pencils and paper each day), clutter free and prepared to accommodate their learning whims!

So...if I were to transfer that philosophy to my own home which is my children's classroom, well, then, I've got some work to do!

I fought to be organized in my classroom, and it is the same fight at home! I am the walking, living breathing definition of a scatter brain. I forget where my keys are constantly, always put things away in a different place and never know where my cell phone is. I see very clearly how this affects me day to day, especially how much time I spend looking and re-looking for things each day. And I wonder how a mixed-up, non-organized environment may affect my children as well as their organization skills down the road.

So, this "relaxing and stress free summer" is going to be about getting my home organized and in good working condition for me, my husband and my kids by August which is when our first homeschool year officially starts! And of course I will go about it in true teacher fashion and draw up "classroom plans" of how I want things to look and then I will implement my plans. I may also use a few websites I've found that may be helpful in assisting this effort, that I will highlight this summer.

I'm hoping to take pictures of each area I change, before and after shots, to involve you in keeping me accountable, so stayed tuned!

Also to come? A cute little plan I modified to avoid hearing this phrase, "I'm bored. There's nothing to do!" from the 10-year-old all summer long! :)

Summertime!

I either have a very lengthy case of writer's block, or I just have nothing really pertinent to write about. But here are some of our summer time pics so far. Maybe at some point I'll find the words to share as well!