Project 25: Getting organized for Summer

I'm a list maker. Not because I'm organized or anything but because if it's not written down I'll forget it 10 minutes later. I rely on a calendar because I never remember upcoming commitments. I make regular efforts to get us organized, not always successfully, but I keep trying.

The kids have 5 more days of school left. I've spent the past week or so trying to get everything organized for summer. I'm hoping this means they won't spend every moment of the beautiful summer days staring at a screen. :) In case you're facing this dilemma as well here are some things we're doing.

A Summer bucket list. Every year we put up a huge list of everyone's ideas of things they want to do. It's usually almost 6 feet long. As we do each item we mark it off the list or make a tick mark if it is something we do more than once, like going to the dog park.

A Summer calendar. Because the bucket list gets long, we start our summer calendar before school is out. By the time summer gets here we typically only have 1 or 2 weekends free. Here is where we schedule in prepaid camping trips, summer school, road trips, camps, festivals, county fairs, birthday parties, annual barbeques and the like. Once the framework is in then we can really see where we can fill in swimming, hiking, kayaking and other fun stuff.

A Summer Schedule. This is my first year doing this. Thank goodness for Pinterest. There are so many cool ideas I don't have to come up with myself. This is a free printable you can download here. I love this idea because so many times things like museums never make it to the bucket list. I'm hoping it also means that I won't be stuck in the circle of "what do you want to do, I don't know, what do you want to do".

A Summer Learning Goal. I used some free printables again for this goal, you can get them here. I really want my kids to understand that learning is a lifetime activity. Not just for school hours but something you're always doing. They choose what they want to learn about and we run with it. My daughter Josie and I have already planned to make life size an anatomy model including removable organs out of felt. She loves to sew and draw so this is a perfect project for her. We'll do online research, check out library books and see where it leads us.

I've also spent some time updating our Bored Jar. I took out things that we're driving me crazy like "eat ice cream" and "watch a movie with popcorn". Sometimes mama just prints out ready make printables and really regrets it later. I added things that include our new puppy and some that include new passions like chalk art and playing the drums. I put in almost 50 new activities. My daughter Lili was so excited she's already dived in.