I’m not a big planner. But kids like to know what’s happening when. So I pulled out our art easel and put it to use in our mudroom, to display daily plans and choices to keep the girls busy and informed.
Or course, they don’t always need a plan, or choices. There is still loads of free play happening here – always. But a little summertime structure is nice. I got this idea from the 3-6 year old classroom at my girls’ Montessori school, where they write any major daily happenings on a chalkboard that was refurbished from an old window that hangs on the wall.
Here’s what was on the board for today, written out by my oldest girl. Yesterday it rained so we were in the house all day. In return, this was a get-out-of-the-house day.
(SSP stands for Solving Summer Problems, a twice a week community meeting led by my oldest daughter and molded after the community meetings held at her Montessori school. I’ll post on that later.)
On the other side is our Summer Fun List, which I mentioned in our No-Schedule Summer post. It’s the most Basic Summer Fun List, which I started when the kids mentioned something they wanted to do this summer.
The second page (not shown here) is all their own things they added, like sleepover with friends, boat rides, wacky day, Slash Country, have a party for Fruit Punch (the cat), lemonade stands, eat ice cream for dinner and more. It’s simple, kid directed, gives them choices they approve it and it works. Yesterday on the Daily Summer Board under To Do it said Choose from the Summer Fun List. And we did indeed, cheek off a few things off the list. Even though a few of them will happen again.
