Visions of summer

We have gotten back on track academically since Pesach.  More or less anyway.  We finished the fractions unit from Math Mammoth and are now doing some geometry with the big boys for a change of pace.  It's much easier conceptually I think so we go a whole lot faster.  I got them some fancy notebooks to write down their copywork assignments( Beautiful Italics for Children) into and that usually gets them more motivated.  We started doing the world map memorization program from here that uses various mnemonic sentences to to step by step draw and label the world map from memory.  We really like it and dh often fleshes things out for the kids by telling them interesting facts and  bits of history associated with different places.  Prince and Pauper was a great success as a read aloud.  We are continuing more or less with hebrew writing, grammar and such a few times a week.  I have worked oral narration into our studies once in a while.  I have been doing more projects like cooking, baking and easy crafts with the younger set and some more formal stuff but a lot more sporadically with my six year old.  It's certainly summer here already weather wise and the kids are spending a lot of time outside.  Ds10 usually does a lot of independent reading, mostly adventures and suspense.  We are trying to encourage him towards classics but we'll see.  Both of them need to work on their english reading, but most days we get to it on a very minimal level at best.  I don't have a problem with that as long as we continue to read to them on regular basis which some time is hard to do.  With the little ones I usually read to them quite a lot every day but the stuff that is interesting to them. There is plenty of informal learning of course, discussions, doing things together in a regular course of life, but some things we just chronically don't get to.  And besides, often it takes a tremendous amount of effort  to get them to settle down,  even more so to keep things positive and to keep the momentum going.  I feel we could all use a break and a change.  So.... I've been thinking of going on a summer schedule for the next few months.  Reserve one day for formal school work just to keep in practice for math and  geography, may be.  But otherwise just read lots of books together, finally do some of the projects I wanted to do with them,  pick a few things that we never get to and do them,  spend some time in the garden together, etc.  Come to think of it, a very Charlotte Mason type summer.   I am hoping it will help us recharge and  hopefully help us restart in the fall in more positive frame of mind.  So in the next few weeks, I hope to make some plans, draw up some book lists and project ideas, gather the supplies we need for various projects so we could proceed and make some of these summer visions into a reality.   I am really looking forward to this.  I hope it works out and we'll just play it by ear and see what develops.