One benefit of the Leadership Education philosophy is that my kids love our homeschooling and want to homeschool year-round. (It wasn't always this way: previously, my homeschooling methods led my daughter to think homeschooling was akin to punishment.)
Even though we homeschool year-round, I like to make things more relaxed by shifting our focus in the summer months. This gives me a chance to ease up a little on trying to "do-it-all" and allows us to move into the next school-year eager and ready for new explorations.
In the summer months, I generally drop our history and science studies. Instead, I like to put a little emphasis on some other area.
Some things we've focused on in past summers were:
World geography and culture - taking a trip around the world through books, music, and foods from different countries
Swimming proficiency
Music: such as through listening to The Story of Classical Music
Art: through learning about artists and featuring their art in our living room art display
Summer vegetable gardening
Nature study: purposefully spending more time together outside, exploring, writing or drawing in our nature notebooks
Some areas of emphasis I'm considering for Summer 2019 include:
Shakespeare: we recently learned about Shakespeare in our Middle Ages history studies, and my kids seem particularly interested to dig deeper into his plays
Tuttle Twins books: my kids love these books, but since they often lead to long discussions, we often don't find time to read them during our typical school-year studies
Spanish - I've recently set a goal for myself to learn more Spanish, and my kids have been enthusiastically doing the audio lessons with me
I'm not going to get overly structured with our new summer "curriculum", instead leaving it more free-flowing and interest-led. In many ways, our summer days will look much the same as the rest of the year, since we will generally still do our morning and afternoon routines. But there will be a bit less stress overall, plus a bit more time to relax and pursue other interests.
Do you homeschool year-round? What do you differently in the summer months? What works best for your family?
Links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you use these links, your price remains the same but I may earn a small commission. Thanks for supporting this site!