2016 Summer Goals
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Summer in WA is short. Way too short to waste. I want to spend it intentionally and without regrets. The rain will be back in just a few months, and I don’t want to be full of “I wish I had…” thoughts. Our schedule is slower and more relaxed in the summer. The kids spend more time playing outside. It would be very easy to read all day or binge-watch HGTV if I didn’t have a plan.
This summer I plan to:
School
- Plan our 2016-2017 homeschool curriculum. I need to figure out what the heck we are going to learn next year. We will take a few classes at our new parent partnership co-op, but the rest will be at home. I like to have the year mapped out well before the first day of school in September.
- Finish creating the reading lists for Hannah and Ben. After I have chosen all of the books for the year, I will need to start reading the books and formulating lesson plans. It takes a good bit of time to read the novel, plan activities, and write questions and story prompts, so I like to start in the summer. I want to plan for 4 books this summer.
- Order any needed curriculum and books. Once my curriculum and book choices are in place, I need to start collecting materials. I am a bit impatient, so I like to have everything on my bookshelf waiting for me. This also gives me time to familiarize myself with the curriculum if it is new to us.
Home
- Figure out what I want to do with the greenhouse. Our new home came with a greenhouse. Gardening is completely new to me, so I’m not quite sure what to do with it yet. I would like to extend our growing season though, so I need to figure it out and come up with a plan.
- Organize the garage. I still can’t park my car in the garage because the boxes, lawn equipment, and outside toys are scattered throughout. Twice this week I had to dig through boxes to find something. I don’t plan to move again for a long time, so it is time to finally take care of these boxes. An added bonus will be not getting wet unloading groceries.
- Put house numbers on the house. Isn’t it weird there are no numbers on the house? I didn’t notice it until an insurance agent pointed it out to me. It feels like a safety issue to not have a house number displayed for emergency workers. If I need to call 911, I want them to be able to find me!
Fun
- Go for a hike in a new location. WA is a beautiful state, and I’m excited to explore it. We have coastline, a rainforest, and mountains. I’m not really an outdoor person, but it always feels exciting to see a waterfall! We arrived in WA at the start of the rainy season, so I didn’t get a chance to get out of the house much. We are going to change that now that we finally have sunshine.
- Go swimming. We miss our neighborhood lake from VA, but I’m sure we can find somewhere to splash around. There is plenty of water in western WA. We have plenty of options between lakes, rivers, and pools. Plus, swimming tires the kids out.
- Take a field trip! There is so much I want to see and do now that we have a little more time. We are fortunate to have museums, plays, an aquarium, a zoo, and many other educational resources fairly close by. The hard part will be choosing what to do.
I’m hoping this list of goals will give us a balance between productive and fun.