82 Days of Summer Fun

For the past few years, I have tried to make our summers fun with a little bit of routine so that our days don't get away from us.  With 3 children, I didn't want to hear the constant "I'm bored" or "What is there to do" from the kids.  So, I came up with the plan to number each of our summer days and after each day we write out what we did.  We also give each weekday a theme for us to focus on.  Of course these themes can be ignored if something comes up, but gives us a plan for the week, if we need it.  Some ideas that I have used are....

Movie Mondays  (watch a movie at home or go to the movies)
Tasty Tuesdays (try a new recipe or cook something with the kids)
Wild Wednesdays (anything goes)
Thinking Thursdays (some sort of school work....keeping our skills active)
Fun Fridays (anything goes, trip to the park, playdate with friends, etc)
Game Day Monday or any day (drag out all those board games and have fun)
Worship Wednesday (spending sometime with the Bible, some devotions and listening to Christian music)
Swimming Wednesday (going to the pool every wednesday)

A couple years ago, my summer ideas were featured in a popular parenting magazine.  So, I hope other families are finding my ideas make their summers more managable.

On top of these themes, I also have a list of chores the kids need to accomplish like making their beds, emptying the dishwasher, putting their laundry away, sweeping, and dusting.

Then the final thing I focus on during the summer is their reading.  I encourage the kids to read books at or above their level of reading.  I keep track of the pages they read and after they tell me about the book, I record their number of pages.  Then I record the number of pages.  Once they reach 500 pages, we go out for an ice cream treat, at 1000 pages, I give them $10.  Last summer we made it to the 500 page goal.  I also take them to Barnes and Noble to pick out a book after completing the Barnes and Noble Summer Reading program, which is reading 8 books.

We also take a vacation over the summer and get away for a week or two.  This year we have decided to head east.  So, we look forward to planning out our destinations over the next few weeks.  Before we know it, those 82 days will be gone and school will be starting all over again.  But, we will have a record of our summer and will we certainly make the most of our 82 DAYS OF SUMMER!