I can’t believe that summer is almost over.  This is the first summer that we didn’t have a Summer Session set for Scarlet.  (Completely unintentional alliteration there but fun nonetheless.)  This year we had a summer reading list and Scarlet has been guest blogging on Cap’s blog writing weekly movie review essays.

Our normal Summer Session would have a theme and I’d plan lessons around that theme. For the most part, lessons would involve handwriting, spelling, grammar, reading, math, history, geography and science.   I’d also work a couple of art projects into the six week session.  Our Summer themes have been Ancient Egypt, Middle Ages, Zoo Life, Ocean Life and Doctor Who.

Here are a few worksheets that I put together for our Zoo Life Summer Session.  The Zoo Life came from a conversation with Scarlet about what to call different groups of animals.  She loved watching Animal Planet and loved that group of cats is called a clowder.  Then she heard that a group of crows is called a murder.  Before she asked me 500 more questions I suggested that we choose Zoo Life for our summer lessons and we could learn all of the groups over the summer.

The facts sheets included a coloring page picture, information on the subject and a world map to mark the habitat.

I created the math sheets on Math-Aids.  I moved the worksheet part into an Excel page that I created adding the header and the cute clip art.

We decided on Ocean Life after a fun trip to the aquarium at Lego Land in California.  Scarlet and I enjoyed the sea horses and rays, Cap was partial to the sea turtles and jellyfish.  After we left the aquarium we talked about other creatures that lived in the oceans that we hadn’t seen at the aquarium, we decided that otters, seals and dolphins were some of our favorites.

We covered Ocean Life the following year, I kept the coloring page picture and the world map but it was Scarlet’s job to do the research in order to fill in the facts part.

We watched a lot of  Doctor Who that year trying to get caught up for the 50th anniversary show.  While we were watching we realized that there were so many historical and scientific references that we had a lot of opportunities for some fun summer learning.  I made this book report sheet that we actually used for some episodes.  Scarlet was surprised and pleased that she could apply the same  ideas for book reports to the episodes.  Even better she got to pick her favorites episodes to watch again.

It was nice having a less intensive summer but I do miss making fun worksheets and surprising Scarlet with fun coloring pages.  I know that she’s outgrown them, she’s an amazing artist in her own right and coloring other artists isn’t as fun as working on her own drawings.  She takes after me though and often makes her own designs from different ideas and references, so I can still direct some fun art related exercises into our lessons.

I am off to do some more planning for this coming year.  Enjoy the last few days of summer!