Organizing Our Summer: Weekly Activities

Last week I showed you our daily summer routine. If you missed it, click the link and check it out so you'll know what I'm talking about :)

Now, here's the bottom half of that routine page:

Nothing too fancy, but I wanted to document some of the things the kids had written on their summer brainstorming lists so we wouldn't miss any of them!

Every day we have Learning Time. I wanted to schedule a time where the kids could work on the things they said they wanted to learn this summer, as well as some things their teachers mentioned they should continue practicing :) I listed everything here so we wouldn't forget what to work on.

I also listed some of the ideas they wanted to do for outdoor time and play time so we wouldn't forget any of them.

But what I'm most excited about with our daily schedule is the Activity Time every afternoon. I decided the best way to do all the different things they wanted to do, without any of them becoming boring, was to pick a different type of activity each day of the week. This way they can look forward to each day of the week and the particular type of activity we do that day.

Here's a bit of a description for each day.

Make it on Mondays

My kids enjoy baking and I've pinned a bunch of fun summer recipes to try out {you can see them on my Recipes board or my Summer board}. And my son asked if we can make ourselves a "cookies in a jar" mix, like the ones we gave their teachers. Cute.

We've also got a bunch of craft kits, paint-by-number sets, and science books/experiment kits that we don't typically have time to do during the school year. Our craft area is still pretty well organized and ready to go!

There are all the kinds of things we'll do on "Make it on Mondays".

Last week we made dirt cake. I've never made it before but it was Y.U.M.M.Y! My daughter especially liked adding the gummy worms on top. Because what's a little dirt without worms? :)

Play it on Tuesdays

On Tuesdays, we'll play games. We have lots of games in our games cupboard, but some are played more than others.

My son wanted to play each game at least once this summer. I think that's a fun idea. Once we're through all of them we can play whatever we want. And at the end of the summer we can purge any that they didn't like as much or probably won't play again.

Which park on Wednesdays

My daughter LOVES playgrounds, so I want to make sure she has lots of opportunities to enjoy them this summer. Especially since she gets stuck going to her brother's baseball games and practices several nights a week. She is not the LEAST bit interested in watching, but she is too young to go off to the playground by herself while were there. This girl needs some dedicated playground time during the day :)

{Yes her shirt's on backwards... I pick my battles :)}

We have some favourite playgrounds near our house, but there are tons of others within only a few minutes' drive. I thought the kids might get bored going to the same places too often, especially my son who's starting to get a bit old for playgrounds.

{Doesn't it drain your energy having to drag your kids places they don't want to go, even though you know they'll have a good time when they get there? Or maybe I'm the only one... please tell me I'm not!}

I figure by calling it "Which park on Wednesdays" I can kind of make a game out of going to a different park each week. So far they like the idea... even my son :)

The park we went to last Wednesday was one they hadn't been to since they were really little. Neither of them remembered it, but I remembered that it had shade :)

My son was learning how to do underdogs and my daughter was more than happy to be his guinea pig :)

Does anyone have tips for how to take pictures of kids on swings? Most of mine had only parts of bodies either coming or going LOL. This time I'm deleting them right away though, instead of keeping all those blurry or partial body photos on my hard drive! I'm learning... see this week's post from the Great Photo Purge challenge for more on this :)

Get wet on Thursdays

This can involve all kinds of options, but the ones my kids mentioned on their summer brainstorming lists were splash pads, the beach, swimming pools, and the good ole' sprinkler. I may throw in water balloons if I'm ambitious sometime. Or sponges... that's easier. Maybe we'll even wash the car and have fun spraying each other while we do it {we don't wash it very often so it'll be a fun event for them LOL!}.

Of course, we will change this routine as needed, depending on things like the weather, or free swim dates at local pools, or play dates. It's summer. We want to be flexible.

Like last week we had "Watch it on Thursday" instead of "Watch it on Friday" since it was raining on Thursday. We were hoping to have "Get Wet Friday" the next day, but it was still pretty rainy and we had a playdate instead. First week and we already switched things up... wonder if we'll have any weeks that actually follow the routine :)

Watch it on Fridays

After all those activities all week, I figure Friday can be a little bit lower key. And since we're limiting screen time normally, this is our opportunity to have some extra time in front of one. But this is shared together instead of individually in front of a Wii, DSi, or computer :)

My kids were never really into movies that much. It used to be almost a punishment to make them watch one. In the last few months though, they've started enjoying movies more and they finally see it as something enjoyable.

Over the years, we have built up a small collection of movies but there are some that they either haven't watched or haven't watched in a long time. Everyone has their favourites :)

I thought we'd try to go through some of the ones they aren't as familiar with this summer. I'd especially like them to watch some classic and some newer Disney movies, since we're hoping to go Disneyworld this fall. I'd like them to know as many of the characters as possible so they get the most out of the experience. The library will help supplement our collection too.

Once in awhile, we'll head to an actual theatre too. There's a discount one around the corner from us that has movies that are nearing the end of their run. It's much more economical and my kids don't seem to mind not seeing movies right away when they're released.

Putting it all together

Here's a look at the whole routine sheet.

It hangs in our kitchen command centre, in place of one of the daily routines from the school year. I can't believe how many times the kids check it to see what they'll be doing next. The novelty may wear off as the summer goes on, but so far they're enjoying it. And we're all enjoying the variety.

Plus, by having certain times when we're doing things together and other times when they're doing things on their own, I can be fully engaged when it's "together" time, and not feel guilty doing things I want/need to do at other times.

Tomorrow, I'll share how I organized our cleaning time. If you're looking for other summer organizing ideas, check out my Summer board on Pinterest.

How do you organize your summer? Do you have daily or weekly routines? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Happy organizing!