[SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting, do you want to look back on this summer and feel good about how you and your homeschool children spend your time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm not saying there isn't room for rest, refreshment, and even a lot of fun, but what about all the time in between?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the days that you are just home, or maybe it's the free time your kids will have in between activities.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter if you like a jam pack summer or prefer one more relaxed, there is just something about coming alongside our kids and showing them how to be productive and helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: This habit will serve them well for many years to come as they look at their time as a great gift and desire to spend it well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you have a five-year-old or 12-year-old or even a 16-year-old, I'm excited about how this episode today will inspire your summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Little By Little Home School Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Lee Nguyen, a mom who just graduated her final homeschool at this past weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a wonderful celebration, an at-home little ceremony, and a cookout where friends and family just came and went and we filled them up with good food
[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't listen to the episode from I believe it was middle or end of May, where I talked about how we do our homeschool graduations, I would encourage you to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually helpful for me to go back and listen to that and review it because it's been a couple of years since we've done a graduation party and I need to freshen up.
[SPEAKER_00]: and say, what did I do before?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I definitely wanted to recreate that with a little bit of a spin and adding in his personalities and just the way we decorated it was just it was really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to encourage you to listen that episode of Evergraduate this year next year or in years to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: but today let's talk a little bit more about my summer hack to keep your homeschool kids productive and helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned this the hard way but that's how God works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is we have maybe a tough summer and then we say you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to repeat that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What can I do to make our summers better?
[SPEAKER_00]: And these are the things that I implemented when my kids were young and we continue with them all the way through the high school years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy today's episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a sneaking suspicion that you are very similar to me and think like this as well, but I wanted to look back on the summer when it was done and we started our new home school year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to look back on that and feel really good about how we spent our time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel like that, too?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a wish?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a desire that you have?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a really commendable thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: who want to look back on a couple of months and say, we totally wasted the summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this doesn't mean that your summer has to be a certain way in order for it to feel good.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be seasons in life where you're just saying, we need this to be a slow summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's going to be seasons where you're like, we can go and we can hit all of the fun water parks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can hit all of these playvades and all of these activities because you're just in a season.
[SPEAKER_01]: where that's going to work for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want you to look back on the summer that you are now entering and say that was a really good summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: We spent our time really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so today I'm going to talk about my summer hack for helping my homeschool kids to stay productive and helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think there's anything wrong with that with having that desire and wish for your kids for the summer so that you can look back and say, I'm my time well, they spent their time well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we homeschool, there is no need to cram every single moment full of creating memories when you are homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_01]: The summer is just a time that maybe is a little bit different than it is during the school year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you homeschool year round or not, I know a lot of homeschoolers that do year round, take things a little bit differently over the summer and we'll kind of get a little bit into that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is no countdown to when school starts and we have to get all of this done before that, because homeschooling and your life and creating memories and being together is just
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a part of all of it and so you don't have to fall into that pattern into that trap of feeling like you have to cream so much into every week, every day of this summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I look back through all of the years, some of it oldest is 21 now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the years of homeschooling would have been, I guess, 14 summer so far.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every summer was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the kids were different, I was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also for my family, the summer might have been different because we have lived in a couple of different homes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We lived in two different states.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, sometimes the summer did look different because we were living in a new place.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just the feel of the summer and the way that our family interacted was just different.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did find, though, that these hacks, there's actually four things that I'm going to tell you today that falls under this one big summer hack.
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that to keep that it was important really basically to keep at that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was like the foundation and I found also that it wasn't something that is just appropriate for kids that are little or maybe middle age or older.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was something that really grew with my kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was very much situated in and pointed towards them when they were little and appropriate for their age.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as they got older, it just changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So today I'm going to tell you those four things that comprised basically are every week.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the foundation for a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't things that had to happen every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of them did happen every single day as long as we didn't have other things going on and as long as it maybe were on vacation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I really tried to spend more slow days at home or at least to have some days that we were just home and then maybe combine all the running around on other days.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did do an episode, I believe it was last summer, possibly the other summer before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's all about just kind of how to set up some days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I will drop that link in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're curious about some other episode about getting your mind right and finding routine, then that kind of stuff for the summer I will leave those resources for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now let's get into those four areas that comprised my big summer hack and this wasn't something that I put together in the very first summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you get to benefit from all four of these because it was a couple years in the making as
[SPEAKER_01]: I really leaned into how a homeschool family could enjoy the summer and just even being a homeschool family and having all of that time together as opposed to just a couple of months in the summer and trying them to make the most of every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, no, we can actually find a rhythm, find a routine, and so these were the foundation for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty much every single day, and at least the days that we were at home, which in some years was a lot of days, because to be honest, it was just easier.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing was coming up with a summer project for my kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this was done on an individual basis.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how I came up with this was I just found especially for my boys, especially for my older son who at that time was probably
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven, eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just was like, he needs something to occupy his time because when his time was more occupied, he got into less trouble.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't finding other ways to occupy his time that I did not prefer for him to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so his brother was a few years younger and probably just kind of followed along and followed suit with it and wasn't really necessarily the ring leader.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I found a book at a homeschool convention and it was called something like mini weapons or something and basically I was like, okay, this could actually be something from the gym.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of the weapons and things were like you would use.
[SPEAKER_01]: toothpicks or straws or marshmallows rubber bands tape all kinds of like little things and so he would create a catapult maybe um i don't even remember all of the different things but i found this book and i was like this would be fun to do and i was gonna hold it off for the home school year and i'd like to know why
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm going to have him do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he had a, and this again, this depends upon each child.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I knew for him, I could give him a minimum saying that you have to complete two weapons every week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he would get that done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also found it was good for him to learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: How to manage his time and this doesn't mean I said when he was seven or eight I need you to have two weapons two of these made every single web week and he had it done It would talk a lot of me saying so what part of it you are working on today?
[SPEAKER_01]: So you really have to know your child and so if it's something like that You might have to say okay, I want you to do this part today or I want you to do this one today or you're gonna have an hour to work on this
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the this is the basis for how this all started and then I began to come up with projects for my other two to do as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so every summer for so many years I would come up with some type of summer project.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was one year where I had that same child.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just a couple that really stick out my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're another one that really stuck out sticks out in my mind is when I had him build a dog house.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was his summer project and we were doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But pretty much ain't about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we purchased anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a look at all the scrap wood that Dad has, and I think the shingles were literally shingles that were from our house, just you know how you there's always extra from when they do the roof, and
[SPEAKER_01]: He just kind of took a look at it and I made him design it out and measure it out and created in the funny thing isn't this dog house because it was solid wood was so heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then he recruited his sister and she painted it and she created like a crest for the dog and painted that on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it kind of just became a thing and
[SPEAKER_01]: I just found with the Summer Projects, it was a good way for me to stretch my kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was one summer that I allowed my daughter to be in charge completely of all of our flower gardens.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I took her to go shopping for seeds or for plants, whatever she needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was in charge of getting of designing that and figuring out when to plant things and then,
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe doing some transplanting and watering and taking care of all that, and so it was something that she was interested in and I just gave her the space and the freedom to do that and to make some mistakes and to mess up and that's really how you learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I found that it was a great way to stretch them a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also found that finding something that they maybe didn't even know existed, and it would depend on how much they're aware of that's on the internet or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my kids were, when they were younger, really pretty sheltered, and so they didn't even know maybe a possibility existed, and I would give them that project.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh, wow, I didn't even know that such a thing even could happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I just think that it's neat to really think about our kids and reflect and study them and say, I think that this would be a really good center project for them to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So something that's going to stretch them, something that they might not necessarily know about, but something that you know is going to be good for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might not necessarily in the beginning of the summer think that this is a good project, but my hope is that by the end of the summer they start to see that end, maybe they don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be years down the road to be honest, that doghouse building, there was a lot of complaining and grumbling, but now he looks back and he was like, that's actually pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is some light at the end of the tunnel, safer that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second part of my summer cat hack was to have chore charts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that there can be different opinions on things like chore charts, but here's me telling you why these saved my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so tired of having to tell my kids over and over again every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you make your bet?
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single day, did you brush your teeth?
[SPEAKER_01]: That these aren't really, this isn't rocket science.
[SPEAKER_01]: These aren't big tours that they have to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just basic things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was so tired of having to repeat myself every day to three different people, multiple times.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so a chore chart was just a way of me communicating to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I told them, this is as good as my word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you are thinking, I don't really know how to lay out shorts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I don't know what shorts to have them do.
[SPEAKER_01]: The tidy home is going to be a great resource for you to get this all in order.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the summer is a really good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get all the information at littlebethelhomeschool.com backslash.
[SPEAKER_01]: tidy home and the link is also in the show notes and you can set all of your chores and all of your cleaning up and I go specifically into how to create a chore system for your kids and what that can look like and I talk a bit more in that all about my favorite chore system.
[SPEAKER_01]: I say my favorite chore chart will say.
[SPEAKER_01]: But chore charts really can save you with just the regular mundane
[SPEAKER_01]: And you could today, these chores need to be done before breakfast or these chores need to be done as soon as breakfast is done before you have any time to play or before we go to the pool or before we go outside, whenever your day is set up as, but having some accountability for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And 100% they have to be doing some chores.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single child can be doing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the toddlers can be helping out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now maybe they don't have a chore chart.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they can very easily be with you and we may be straightening up the living room or cleaning up the playroom or outside putting away the holes with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, all the things that they want to join in with you and do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And chores aren't a negative thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that they can get a bad rap overall in culture and society, but hey, we'll look.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody's got to do these chores, and it really should not be you as the homeschool mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should not be the one who's doing all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So having shortarts, having some lists, having some way of communicating to your kids, what is expected of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these shortarts are basically just the bare minimum.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would tell my kids, you also need to be available.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not going to pull you away from playing all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will talk to you and say, hey, today,
[SPEAKER_01]: we are going to be cleaning out the garage.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am going to ask you for some help and for you to come and help me, it's gonna take maybe about an hour for you to help me out and maybe they're just running things back and forth, letting them know beforehand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of suddenly, they're in the middle of playing and you turn them away from that to clean up the garage.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't always go very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there could be extra stuff on top of that but any type of chore system has to be the basics that happen every single day, like seven days a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third thing that I really did every single summer that was so good was to encourage their hobbies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's giving them time.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not filling up every single moment of every single day, saying Monday we're going here and Tuesday we're going here Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and then the next week it's the same places or different places and everything will day is filled up, but give them time to work on their hobbies.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter what that hobby is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it is making friendship bracelets.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like those are back in, or they've come kind of back in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember making those back when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like the one thing that I was good at.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not a sports, not good at sports at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, didn't feel like I could contribute much to my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: But friendship bracelets?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can make them a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: But whether it's making friendship bracelets or it is designing a computer program or it is creating an obstacle course in the backyard for the dog or it is some type of artistic pursuit of drawing or water color or.
[SPEAKER_01]: something in music or becoming better at a sports, maybe they're really honing in on their soccer skills and the backyard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever their hobbies are, encourage them, provide time, provide resources that are within your budget and within your time budget as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: For them, just to spend time on their hobbies.
[SPEAKER_01]: This might be a hobby that they have been carrying over for a few years and it's growing and it's getting bigger.
[SPEAKER_01]: So say for example, the gardening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this on our project is to work on the garden one summer and you find that this child really, really enjoys.
[SPEAKER_01]: growing flowers or growing vegetables or taking care of the yard and that's not necessarily a summer project anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you come up with a different summer project and encourage them to continue their hobbies and getting out there and building their knowledge and their love of horticulture.
[SPEAKER_01]: But whatever their hobbies are, encourage them in that and provide time and resources.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you never know where it's going to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes that hobby just kind of fizzles out because kids figure out that they are just done with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I've learned as much as I want to learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to move on to the next thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't get upset.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you provide time for their hobby and then halfway through the summer, they're like, I'm done learning how to jump rope.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I'm pretty good at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I want to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so provide then opportunities for them to work on that hobby.
[SPEAKER_01]: The very last thing I want to mention here with my summer hacks of providing a foundation and a routine and some consistency in continuity to the days of the summer for my kids was, I required them every single day to do some reading.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this could depend upon the levels that your kids are at, maybe they're really young and you just say, well, I'd like you to spend 10 minutes just looking at picture books.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll find it, they'll kind of start reading them, we'll say, quote unquote, reading them because they remember the story, but just letting them have time to read.
[SPEAKER_01]: There might be some kids who are not very enthusiastic about reading, and they're reading might consist of some graphic novels.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're reading.
[SPEAKER_01]: So encouraging them to read every day and giving them time to read every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are some kids where their hobbies maybe is reading, and they're going to like, all right, good, and I can read every single day, and they will spend hours upon hours with their nose in a book.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's okay, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But letting them have some time to read.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a child that is not really big into reading, then you decide how long is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that 15 minutes?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it 30 minutes?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe 30 minutes straight would be too long.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you say, 2015 minutes sessions where you might give them an option.
[SPEAKER_01]: Say, I want you to refer total of 30 minutes today.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do that 30 minutes all at one time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can do that 30 minutes split it up for 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening, but some reading every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: and maybe you have a young child at home who does not read yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also encourage and the older children to read to the younger children and that can count as their reading time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, attached to that reading time was also math and I have mentioned over and over again how important it is to give them that foundation of learning how to read well but also having their math facts really solid
[SPEAKER_01]: focus in and hone in on that and to get really solid with their mathematics.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I had a minimum of four to five days a week for maybe 15 minutes each of those days that I would have them work on math.
[SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't any type of new skills.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no lessons involved.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was completely review.
[SPEAKER_01]: The math curriculum that we used in the back of the workbook had homework.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess basically it was supposed to be supposed to do it afterwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not really quite sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was for a home school.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: We guess it was just supposed to be additional.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't have them do that during the home school year.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would then do those afterwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: So during the summer they would just go through.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in about 15 minutes there was maybe 10 problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was good to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would do a quick check on it and just make sure things are correct because we don't want kids to be walking around thinking that long division goes a certain way and they actually had the process a little bit wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just having that math and I found that it gave them a good solid way of keeping up with their math facts.
[SPEAKER_01]: There wasn't the loss of
[SPEAKER_01]: remembering different math facts and so I just kind of kept them a little bit more sharp.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last one is requiring reading every day and then doing some type of math four to five days a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you might have a child that absolutely loves math and they might think I want to spend a lot more time on doing math.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might even have a child that wants to continue doing their math curriculum and doing lessons.
[SPEAKER_01]: if that is your child, do not say no to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let them go ahead and do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might have a mathematician on your hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope that this summer hack that's comprised of four different areas that I really focused on having my kids spend time on is helpful for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so helpful for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so glad that it took me
[SPEAKER_01]: those couple of summers to refine this and to figure out what was going to poor life into us and what was going to help us to have a productive summer, what was going to help my kids to be helpful around the house, what was going to be helpful for them as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that giving them opportunities to stretch themselves with a son or project and giving them opportunities to contribute to the family, through chore charts,
[SPEAKER_01]: giving them opportunities to spend time on what their own interests, what their own hobbies are, and then also making sure that they didn't lose any ground with their reading and with their mad was just, it was priceless really.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it helped us to give that foundation and I see now how it didn't allow my kids to just really kind of become lazy over the summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we had some
[SPEAKER_01]: times of great refreshment and relaxation and excitement all mixed into one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was really good just to show them that it's okay to continue to be working towards good things, even during the summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it looks like nobody else is or everybody else is all partying or laying around doing that thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what everybody else is doing, but I knew what we were doing and this is what we were doing over the summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Friend, if you enjoy this podcast, one way that you can really bless me and help out the podcast and help this to be heard by more moms is obviously you can share it with your own friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you leave a review, it really helps the algorithm kind of push up this podcast a bit more so when somebody searches for our homeschool, they can go ahead and see it because it'll be there and it's just a great way to let others know what you appreciate and enjoy about little by little homeschool podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Friends, thank you for sticking around here to the end and thank you so much for leaving that review.