Want a chance at a $25 gift certificate or audiobook of your choice from CurrClick? Keep reading. I’m having a contest. Here comes the fancy introduction…
I consider us year-round homeschoolers just because we like to be able to take breaks whenever interesting opportunities come up. That means that we do homeschool off and on during the summer.
measuring the heat of a geyser at Yellowstone
But since homeschooling means far more than just reading and doing written work, we actually are learning even when we’re not “doing school.” I laughed when Sprite expressed relief at having a break from homeschool during our two months in America. My mom noticed the irony of her comment too and gave me a knowing smirk.
During that time we did lots of history and science learning– all hands-on and real-life.
- Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN
- The Hermitage in Nashville, TN
- Two zoos — Columbus, OH and Memphis, TN
- Mud Island Park and The Museum of the Mississippi in Memphis, TN
- Yellowstone National Park where she became a Junior Ranger and a Young Scientist
- Grand Tetons National Park where she became a Junior Ranger
- National Wildlife Museum in Jackson, WY
- Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT
So what are YOU doing this summer for homeschooling? Share what you’re doing here in a blog comment to enter in my Summer Homeschooling CurrClick Contest. Better yet, make an entire blog post on summer homeschooling and link it in your comment. It can be “normal” book work, field trips, special projects at home, or vacations that integrate learning.
Currclick is sponsoring this contest with a $25 gift certificate or an audiobook of your choice to the winner. Isn’t that nice of them? (And because all of CurrClick’s products are available for immediate download, this contest is open to anyone in the world!)
Did you even know that CurrClick sells audio books? They do.
We are big fans of audio books and stories. Sprite has quite a collection of CDs and MP3s that she listens to often. I love that she’s hearing great literature rather than watching mindless movies.
Want to learn about audio books? Here are some links –
- Audio Homeschool
- How to Painlessly Add More Books to Your Reading Schedule
- My Audio Books bookmarks at Tagfoot
Listening to audio books is a great way to sneak in some summer homeschooling without anyone realizing that it’s happening.
I’ll choose a winner on July 26.
And while you’re at it, find a photo from your summer homeschooling travels to contribute to the CurrClick Travel the World Photo Contest. Five finalists will receive the entire Map Trek Series from Knowlege Quest. And the Grand Prize winner gets a Garmin Nuvi 205W GPS Navigation system.
Hi and welcome! I'm Jimmie and this is my online collage of our Charlotte Mason homeschool. Taking just a little more time to document our learning shortens the learning curve for other busy homeschool moms.
Feel free to browse around my posts and freebies. My aim is to bless each reader with something useful. 
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
We’ve intensified our Science and Natural History studies, with several trips to Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Colorado River, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, and the Grand Canyon. We’ve done all that since the end of May and it’s still early! We are going to visit several of Laura Ingalls Wilder homesites, participate in geo-caching at our local state park!
Paula in MN recently posted Wrinkled Ladies.
This year on our summer vacation, we set off from Indiana to South Dakota. We did reading on the long road trip and reviewed some math stuff that we weren’t quite through yet. And we did a lot of sight-seeing. Since our oldest was just finishing first grade, we didn’t do a lot of research…just enjoyed the sights.
On the way, we stopped at DeSmet, SD, to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead and wandered around the town a bit too, looking for other places mentioned in the book.
My brother and his family work among the Lakota Indian tribe, specifically those in Little Eagle, SD. We visited their church and their people, toured the little town, drove around the country viewing God’s handiwork.
We visited Mobridge, SD, took in the local history/Indian history museum there, walked along the Missouri River, and visited the burial site of Sitting Bull (and we checked out a book about him when we got back in IN).
On the way back from South Dakota, we went through St. Paul and enjoyed the sights of the big city and the Mississippi River. We also stopped at the zoo in Chicago and went downtown to devour Chicago-style pizza.
When we returned home, we put together a (not-too-fancy)scrapbook using a “History of Mobridge, SD” newspaper we picked up out west. We hole-punched it and bound it together with twine. We used pictures from our trip, post cards, short written narrations to tell about our trip.
We’ve also revisited Chicago and Shedd Aquarium, complete with the show including beluga whales, a sea lion, penguins, and white-sided dolphins. Since our 4-year-old girl has always loved octopuses, we checked out books for her after she got to see one in person. We also checked out books about beluga whales.
I don’t know if I would call us a year-round homeschooling family, we still take the opportunity to take in educational activities when we can.
Well, lucky for me, I wrote a post on summer hsing last week! Here you go!
http://smallthingswithgreatlovehomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/06/summer-days.html
Your summer hsing adventure sounds a tad more exciting, though!
Blessings,
Sandwich
Sandwich recently posted Doin a 180 or a 90 or a 270I Dont Know.
We “do school” year-round, though summer is usually less organized. So far this summer:
Math = online games and logic puzzles.
Language = blogging and finishing a novel, plus a tiny amount of KISS grammar.
History = mostly historical fiction.
Art = graphite portraits (beautiful!)
PE = horse riding lessons
Science = …um, yeah, we’ll get to that someday…
Denise recently posted Show Off Your Best Stuff.
Great post Jimmie…and so timely for me! Funny thing, I have been waffling for a while this summer about using audiobooks with my middler for the upcoming school year. He’s the antsy type and I know he could get in more literature if we introduced audiobooks into our homeschool. I was feeling guilty about using them, though…somehow thinking it was taking a short cut and didn’t count as much. Silly, huh? Of course audiobooks count! We used them a lot when my ds was a little guy, so why didn’t I stick with them? I will have my ds follow along with the book, though. Let me add that I found your Squidoo lens very helpful, as well as your other posts on this topic. Glad to hear that you’re back home safely and settled…And really glad to see that you’re blogging again.
You will have so many contesters on this lovely HE-blog-hub!
Good luck to all of you!
EDITED BY JIMMIE — enter in contest
We are just doing regular school. My kids do better with structure and schedule in place. We do live near a great beach and go there often, on Lake Michigan. We have talked about waves and wind and alternative eneries.
Jimmie – I am so glad you’re are back! I am looking forward to reading all about your adventures here, and more fascinating stories about life in China.
EDITED BY JIMMIE — enter in contest
I love audio books for myself, but I have to admit, I have not really thought about them for the kids. I will definitely find a way to work it in – esp since I know I should be doing more read-alouds. I have a hard time fitting them in, but maybe these can ease some of the burden. I am a huge fan of old-time radio, and my husband and I often listen to an old Dragnet or Gunsmoke in the evening. They have great kid ones too, that Sprite might like – maybe Sargeant Preston of the Yukon, or Henry Aldrich? Let me know if you want more info.
Deb recently posted Here’s What.
Hello,
We do some school in summer. I have posted about it:
http://caterpillarschool.blogspot.com/2010/07/cooking-tutorial-fozesi-utmutato.html
http://caterpillarschool.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-we-still-study-miert-tanulunk.html
We’ve just moved to the USA after 17 years in Asia. We’re doing some regular days of homeschooling, but we’re also venturing out to explore the area. We’re looking forward to the science museum, the children’s museum, the Creation museum, the horse park, free weekly summer movies at the local cinema, Carter Caves National Park, the Louisville Slugger factory, and who knows what else? We’ve already had a great time hiking at the Natural Bridge park!
We are loosey-goosey, but we are still having school. We are reading lots of books and doing a nice bit of math. We are continuing a geography study of Asia. We are working on attention and kindness. We are learing how to help clean the house. We are playing outside and enjoying the lovely weather, including catching butterflies and examining flowers and trees. We are reviewing some of the things that we talked about during the winter by approaching them from a different angle or with a different medium. We have been to Washington, DC. We have been to the zoo. We are doing studying some things that we just didn’t fit in during the winter months. It is school, but it is fun!
My daughter too couldn’t wait to be “done” for the summer. She worked really hard to finish 3 weeks of math in the first week of June, therefore was rewarded with a trip to Disney World. ( my mom works there so aside from food it’s free for us) She had been watching Modern Marvels: Disney world and behind the scenes movies about Disney, as well as some videos about Walt himself so she was able to give me all kinds of trivia during our day
. She also built, before our trip, a model of the ride Soarin’ out of an erector set. We did Apologia’s Botany this year so she was very interested in The Land, a ride that takes you through old and new farming methods.
She also went to church camp, our church camp has chapel a minimum of 2 hrs a day (all campers and staff are 95% homeschool students or parents) Learning all about 2nd Timothy 3. Lastly (maybe:-) she’ll be taking a trip next week to Washington DC. We’ve watched all kinds of movies (including the National Treasure movies and Mr. Smith goes to Washington). I also bought several books for her to take the DK Eyewitness stickerbook is great–it has maps to fill in with the appropriate monument.—-And all this is considered “fun” not school!!
We do school year round, too. I had to laugh this morning though as I opened the Kingfisher History Encyclo to look up a few things in my planning for next year. There is a big picture of the Great Wall and since my cousins have adopted twice from China in the past few years and sent us lots of pictures of them walking along the wall, I asked my 7 year old what it was (he answered correctly) and then I asked him who he knew who had actually walked on it – he answered ‘Sprite’
Every time I read your blog it is a history, culture, and/or geography lesson! Thanks for sharing with us:-)
Blessings to you all and again – glad you are back safely and had a wonderful trip to the U.S
We started schooling year round as of Monday so my dds are doing regular school. Though this year is the first year we are whole-heartedly doing CM style learning so it is FUN according to my dds. Actually Jimmie we will be using your Monet study for our artist study this term. Thank you for sharing it!
We are doing a little bit of book learning – less than once a week working on math and handwriting, to finish up our books before the next school year starts and to keep some concepts from being forgotten. The rest of our learning is done all the time. We spend lots of time outdoors, which always leads us to looking up something we didn’t know. We’ve signed up for multiple summer-reading-programs, not that we are doing any more reading than normal.
I did a summer school post in June. (But it’s not nearly as interesting as your summer!) Here is the link.
http://learningcurvey.blogspot.com/2010/06/summer-school-plans.html
I post about our summer learning on my blog:
http://homeschoolblogger.com/amtell/777918
Melissa Telling recently posted Summer- Educational or Fun.
We used to homeschool year round but the summer is only about 2 months long where we currently live that it seems like we are outside all day long while the sun is shining. Of course, we are still reading together and learning together!
This summer our big school “project” is the addition of a new little year old sibling to the family from state foster adoption!
We have nine children now and we praise God for the way he worked to bring Gabriel into our family!
I had no idea that Currlick had audio books! Man, have I been hiding in a cave or something?
This summer our intended 3 week break has somehow morphed into 6-8 weeks. We’re not even doing “light” school! Just cleaning, organizing, playing with friends and even having enough leftover time to be BORED. We’re usually too busy for that! It’s been nice but I am really looking forward to getting back in the swing of things next month.
MarshaMarshaMarsha recently posted i have nothing to say.
Well, I had grand plans to write up a blog post about this, but seeing as we aren’t doing too much school right now, it would be a mighty short post.
Our family has a new addition (he’s 6 weeks old!), so right now, the baby is our school!
We LOVE audiobooks, too!
Amy recently posted The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.
So glad I didn’t miss this opportunity. We homeschooled lightly through the summer by finishing up a literature book, composer study book, math review, and independent reading. Mostly we concentrated on her passions in life. Theater (rehearsing and performing in The Wizard of Oz), Art (private art lessons), Volleyball camp and two other art camps. Going to Tybee Island at the end of August and we will study beach life, tidal pools, lighthouses, and Georgia History. Very busy summer but well worth it.
Blessings
Diane
We homeschool year-round as well. Yet summer brings some additional co-ops and summer camp opportunities .. I’ve written a blog post about it:
http://academiacelestia.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-are-your-summer-plans.html
Makita recently posted What Are Your Summer Plans.
We did a lot of “regular” schoolwork this summer in an effort to catch up (still getting back to normal after baby #4 arrived last spring!). We’ve also done things like trips to the Museum of the Rockies (I see you went there, too! – our backyard!) and will hopefully squeeze in a trip to Yellowstone. Living in the NW U.S., we try to get as many outdoor field trips in as we can while the weather is nice.
We had our big field trip and I came home and realized that we needed the structure of school so we are back at it but a bit of a lighter schedule.
http://botaitai.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/summer-school/
Hi Jimmie!
I’m posting another comment to enter your contest. We’ve tucked the school books away, but there’s still a lot of learning going on this summer. Summer homeschooling for my middler has included: gardening, learning to cook a few things on the stovetop, the summer reading program at our local library (presently enjoying The Hobbit on audio while following along wtih the book), nature study (butterflies and dragonflies are biggies right now), swimming, and lots of drawing and sketching. My rising K’er has been enjoying gardening, learning to read, read-alouds (she’s a “listerner” in the summer reading program), audio books, learning to swim, ballet and tap lessons, and tons of crafts!
WOW, what a summer! I’m so excited about finishing the Revolutionary War chapters of SOTW3 and enjoying This Country of Ours, THe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (for the mommy), Our Island Story (pertenent USA chapters) from Librivox.org and many library books along with FIELD TRIPS! Who says summer is relaxing? Not around here when there is history to discover!
Dee recently posted Summer of History.
We homeschool light in the summer. My DS, 7 yo, participates in the local library’s summer reading program, which requires 30 minutes of reading a day. I make him read something new during those 30 minutes. For part of that, he read Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator and is now finishing Charlotte’s Web. We do some math, history, and typing practice as well a few days a week. Summer is a great time for us to do some parks & rec programs for phy ed. So, he’s doing track & field right now & will be doing bowling in August. On the field trip side, we’ve had some good excursions thus far: attending the play, Willie Wonka (DS loved it!); going to an art museum twice; going to the National Eagle Center; and touring our CSA’s vegetable farm. We’ve done some camping, fishing, swimming, and hiking as well. Next week will be more field trips as we’ll be going on our annual trip w/my mother-in-law (her, two of her daughters, her oldest granddaughter, myself, and all eight of our little ones). I don’t know yet what she’s settled on for our excursion, though.
Here’s a post about the thing that so far is the best part of home-schooling this summer:
Lessons with four hooves
Kitten recently posted Lessons with four hooves .