By Amy Vickrey, MSE

With summer comes thoughts of outdoor activities and fun. For those that live in states where there is snow and ice for many months out of the year, it is a time that allows for nature and exploring that is otherwise unavailable. For those in the south, some of these activities could be enjoyed year round. Whatever your timeframe or location, here are some activities to consider as you start planning out your summer.

  • Stargazing – This can either be done as part of a unit study or as just a night or two to lay under the stars and look at the sky.
  • Camping – This may go along with stargazing or just on its own. There are a lot of life skills, science, and history lessons that can go with camping.
  • Fishing – Learn about the types of fish that live in your area, catch and release, or learn to cook and clean as part of life skills!
  • Nature walks – There are an abundance of local, state, and national parks in many areas that allow for nature walks and exploring. Some offer campsites and other amenities.
  • Play hide-and-go-seek – Do this either during the day and at night!! Talk about how different animals use different techniques to “hide.”
  • Watermelon seed spitting contest – (Okay, this may not be totally educational, but you can measure the distance!!)
  • Feed the ducks at the local pond.
  • Fly kites – There are several different online tutorials if you decide to make one instead of buy one.
  • Write or stage your own play.
  • Create your own “movie” – There are lots of editing software out there for free or that are inexpensive.
  • Bicycle ride – Whether you go around the neighborhood or at a local park this can be a lot of fun.
  • Plant things – Grow a garden (you can use various containers), plant trees, flowers, etc.
  • Study different birds, butterflies, etc. for your area – You can even plant specific plants to attract them!
  • Camp inside (the cousins do this at our house regularly) – Put out the sleeping bags, make some snacks, and watch some movies!!
  • Eat popsicles outside! Talk about why they melt so quickly (if they don’t eat them first).
  • Sidewalk chalk to draw, do math, write spelling words, etc.
  • Have a picnic at the local park or in your yard.
  • Play sports and simple games outside.
  • Pick summer wildflowers, press them, and make art with them (make sure they are not protected – in Texas it is illegal to pick bluebonnets, for example).
  • Create (you can even have the kids design it on graph paper) an obstacle course or mini golf course.
  • Listen to a book on tape or have a read-aloud outdoors.
  • Visit the farmers market in your area.
  • Take writing outside! Use a notebook or clipboard for convenience.


Enjoy the time outside this summer! Taking the learning outside creates a wonderful, fresh approach to the many skills we work on year round! Enjoy the warm weather!

For more activities check out our Pinterest board or the following links:
Summer Fun Ideas for Kids and Parents
Cheap Kids Summer Activities
Summer Activities for Kids

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By Cheryl Swope, M.Ed

Far and few, far and few
Are the lands where the Jumblies live.
— Edward Lear


Amidst all the academic rigor, children need a little nonsense. Not only do we love to hear our children giggle, nonsense stretches a child’s mind. A little silliness can take them to unexpected, liberating places.


Moving the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
We can research scientific strategies to help children prone to cognitive rigidity, but we already have one remedy readily available to us: Silliness! Silliness ameliorates the overly literal mind. Absurdity promotes wonder.


Consider the ridiculously tall tree grown from a single small seed. To a child, this is almost absurdly marvelous. G. K. Chesterton writes, “So long as we regard a tree as an obvious thing, naturally and seasonably created for a giraffe to eat, we cannot properly wonder at it. It is when we consider it as a prodigious wave of the living soil sprawling up to the skies for no reason in particular that we take off our hats….”


Using Song and Rhyme to Stretch Thinking
Perhaps even more directly than the wonders of nature, nonsensical rhymes and silly songs can help suspend a rigid child’s over-reliance on the logical. Consider this:

Hey Diddle Diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed,
To see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.


The lilting joy of language, the simplicity of rhyme, and the delight of predictable repetition inherent in silly songs and poems appeal to children’s ears:

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green,
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen:
Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?
‘Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.
Call up your men, dilly dilly, set them to work,
Some with a rake, dilly dilly, some with a fork;
Some to make hay, dilly dilly, some to thresh corn,
Whilst you and I, dilly dilly, keep ourselves warm.

When sown as occasionally bright wildflowers into the cultivated soil of a full garden, the child may explore the lively, the implausible, and the unexpected. 


Opening Doors for Spiritual Truth
Over time, this may serve to assist the child’s apprehension of spiritual truths. Chesterton explains, “Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out Leviathan with a hook.” We read stories from Holy Scripture so that children may become captivated by One greater than our own understanding.

Wonder welcomes us.

We hear the invitation, “Come unto me,” from the very God who became Man. The mystery of the Trinity, the miracle of the incarnation, the depth of the crucifixion, and the transcendent marvel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ for us — all of this is beyond our reason, yet within our grasp by the working of the Holy Spirit.


Developing Hearts and Minds for Wonder
Perhaps we never realized our role in cultivating wonder in our children! As we teach silliness, we accomplish much. This is why we include silly stories, poems, and nursery rhymes in our Simply Classical Curriculum. Not only do we allow our children to improve phonological awareness, but we also let him laugh! More than this, we begin to invite our child to be embraced by that which is greater than his own mind.

Wonder broadens the mind. Specifically, when we teach the marvelousness of God’s Holy Word, we lead our children to be embraced eternally by the One who is truly Wonderful (Isaiah 9:6). “Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” (Psalm 40:5)

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.
— Psalm 139:17-18


Originally published in The Classical Teacher Winter 2015-16 edition. Edited and reprinted with author’s permission.

Did you know SPED Homeschool is 100% donor funded? 

Your contributions keep our ministry running! 

Donate today on GuideStar

(all donations are tax-deductible)

 

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