3 Creative Summer Homeschool Schedule Ideas That You’ll Love

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Thanks so much to my guest Richie from Homeschool and Humor for sharing these fun ideas to incorporate into your summer homeschool schedule. Go check out her blog for tips, encouragement, inspiration, and of course, laughter – because homeschooling is best with a little humor!

Whether you’re a homeschool family who homeschools year round or you break for the more traditional summer break, you can still keep your kids’ minds active with a fun summer homeschool schedule.

There are plenty of summer homeschool ideas if you want to do some homeschooling in the summer that you can incorporate with just about any schedule, and some of the ideas below will be geared towards specific activities when following a summer homeschool schedule.

Regardless of what your summer homeschool schedule looks like, though, make sure you include loads of fun!

Dedicate Nature Study In Your Summer Homeschool Schedule

Summertime is the best time of year to be outdoors and have some fun in the sun. Instead of just going outside without a plan, prevent your kids from running in circles with no rhyme or reason by implementing a nature study summer homeschool schedule. When you do this, you introduce lots of opportunities for learning and growth in several areas and you can cross-curriculum with nature studying too.

Use writing prompts with many famous quotes about nature. Use objects for math, such as leaves or pinecones. Talk about the history of dinosaurs or the history of the huge redwood trees. Study lifecycles of butterflies, frogs, or any other type of creature your kids would enjoy to learn more about.

You can discuss various plants, animal, bugs, trees, Earth, and birds within your nature studies. You’ll also be able to find several free nature study lesson plans or some for purchase as well as curriculums (free or to buy) by doing a simple Google search. Look into several curriculum companies, too, because many offer nature studies as either a course or a specified subject to study, and even some include nature study as part of a science curriculum.

Of course, you can also create your own nature study curriculum yourself! I love creating my own curriculum because I know what my kids have and have not studies, so I can customize the curriculum accordingly. Add any type of medium or format that meets your child’s learning style.

Nature Study Summer Homeschool Schedule

I recommend beginning your nature studies first thing in the morning, when the sun is just rising and you can smell the fresh Earth all around you as you begin a new day. Morning times have always seemed magical to me and your morning time will definitely set the tone for the rest of your day.

As you begin your nature studying outdoors, don’t forget to bring along a nature study notebook. It’s interesting to identify nature with different representations you could be inside your notebook. For example, what is shaped like a square? What is shaped like a triangle? You could collect things, such as rocks or leaves, and then tape the different types of leaves inside your notebook to do more lessons. Or this could become the perfect opportunity to create a rock collection.

You could also decide to begin gardening and introduce plants and soil to your kids. Not only is this a great way to be active, but they’ll also learn a pretty cool concept along the way. Not to mention how much they’ll learn about plant growth and soil health as they are literally learning by doing. This would be a perfect opportunity for family bonding time too, and I’m a huge advocate for spending quality time with kids.

Use Only Unit Studies For Your Summer Homeschool

Oh, the joy of unit studies! This is probably my favorite way to do school because of the flexibility and limitless topics you can do unit studies on. I used to think unit studies were just for history topics – like people, places, and events – but on the contrary, my friend, unit studies are can be on anything!

For a summer homeschool schedule, make the unit study the only thing you cover in the summertime. This is another great way to cross-curriculum your subjects too. Decide on a topic you want to focus on and then decide on the length (how long you’ll do the unit study). Unit studies can last a week, 2 weeks, a month, or even 6 weeks+.

I recommend hitting up a lot of topics while you’re homeschooling in the summer because summer calls for a lot more fun, creativity, and lighter days. So when you do unit studies, you can do them for either a week or two weeks at a time. This way, you’ll be able to cover many cool subject matters throughout the summer!

The key to a successful unit study is the planning bit. Know what topics or themes you cover, and then know what activities your kids will do that hits each criterion for a subject.

Unit Study Summer Homeschool Schedule

Begin your morning like you would any other morning. Instead of doing your regularly programmed schedule, begin and end with the unit study. To start as a warm up, begin your homeschool time with a read aloud book. There are several living books you could read that teaches kids all about the subject. For example, you could decide to do a study on the early explorers. One living book that relates to this is Leif the Lucky by Ingril and Edgar D’Aulaire.

After you read the read aloud, move on to other formats, such as videos of the topic, worksheets of the topics, play games, and hands-on projects of the topic. Home School in the Woods is my go-to curriculum for hands-on projects for history topics, but you can find a lot more out there for free or for purchase. You may also find documentaries or interesting shows to watch on the topic as well. Make a family movie night every Thursday night and watch the movie or show of the week that relates to the unit study topic.

You can do anything with unit studies. As I mentioned, just make sure you have it all planned so you don’t have to go hunting for activities to plug in while your kids sit there waiting on you. Been there, done that. It’s not fun. Nor a smart use of anyone’s time! So plan it ahead of time and don’t just wing it.

Start A Summer Reading Program And Include Activity Worksheets

Like unit studies, you can study any subject matter by reading books. There are quite a few reading materials for kids available, such as in stores, your public library, even on your own personal bookshelf. Don’t forget to ask your mom or siblings or cousins to peruse their personal libraries as well! This would make for a good family visit and a new variety of reading selections. A few of them are:

Reading Summer Homeschool Schedule

Pick a theme you want to study for 2 weeks or so. When you have the topic, go search for a book on it. Alternatively, you could pick a book already in your possession that has a topic.

You could read in the morning time during breakfast. Read during read aloud time. Read in the evening time as the family is gather around you for family night. And read at bedtime. Reading the same book or read a myriad of different books on the same topic. Then continue reading the same books during each of these dedicated times.

As you read books, go to a few online resources to pull worksheets. You can find tons of free worksheets online that coincide with books. Some of my favorite places are:

1. MyTeachingLibrary.com
2. SuperTeacherWorksheets.com
3. HelpTeaching.com

There are usually a dedicate section for worksheets on chapter books and children’s literature in each of these selections. It’s a fun way to dig deeper on the morals of a story or the main ideas of what’s been read. You can also add spelling words and vocabulary words each week from a reading selection. Again, look online or look in one of those teaching resources listed above.

As you read during the summer time, make a reading chart or reading log. Set goals for what kind of books to read, how many books, or how many pages or minutes a day to read. As your kids work their way through the books, you or them can jot down the finished titles on the reading log.

When your kids see the progress they’ve made with books, your kids will feel so proud of themselves and so accomplished. How awesome to see a page full of completed books!

A fun idea for a summer reading program is reading books from each letter of the alphabet. For example, read a book that starts with the letter A. After that, read one that starts with a letter B. And so on. When you do it this way, you could be reading a huge variety of different kinds of books!

3 Creative Summer Homeschool Schedule Ideas That You’ll Love

Summer days make for lighter homeschool days, but it doesn’t have to be dull or boring. Create a fun summer homeschool schedule that everyone can look forward to and commit to it. When homeschooling in the summer, try to focus more on specific topics and less on everything at once. To make time for other things, consider merging subjects together. There’s plenty of creative activities to fill up your homeschool schedules with. Above all, just have fun!

This guest post is part of the Homeschool Summer Fun Series. Make sure to check out the series landing page to learn more about the series and find all of the posts in one place!