Our Summer Homeschool Plans for 2023

One of our favorite places for nature play in the Twin Cities

I am getting SO excited to get our summer rhythm going now that little E has finished preschool for this year. We’re finally dipping our toes into the homeschooling waters now that I think e&A will both be able to follow along. (Baby K? He’s just along for the ride as usual #thirdchildproblems :P)

I’m a little Scandi in my beliefs around education for young children; I don’t think “reading, writing and arithmetic” should be the focus for little ones. Comparative education has been a passion of mine since I started tutoring in high school, and I have read, watched and talked with a huge variety of sources over the past ten years. That’s not the point of this post but it perhaps gives a bit of background as to why I’m so enthusiastic about this summer–finally getting to utilize all that knowledge and interest to (hopefully) benefit my own children!

My kids (and me!) do best with a consistent yet flexible structure to our days. I believe that unstructured free play time is incredibly important–after all, it’s how I spent most of my non-school hours as a kid–but at the same time, little kids also need a sense of purpose, of freshness, of routine and of growth. That doesn’t change with the seasons. Hence: some light homeschooling this summer.

The Curriculum

The cutest curriculum to guide our days 🙂

I’ve been looking at various homeschooling curricula for about two years now. I love the Montessori style of learning, Waldorf education and also forest schooling. After debating between The Good & The Beautiful, Gather Round Homeschool and Little Oak Learning curricula for a while, I recently purchased the summer rhythm from Little Oak Learning (thanks to Noelle Kovary on Instagram for her recommendation).

This curriculum incorporates elements of all three of my favorite education styles for young children and since I am ALL about following the rhythms of the seasons in our lives, it just made sense for us. While we haven’t started using it yet, I will say that the guide and planning resources are of excellent quality (there are twelve weeks of daily plans, which is a real bargain for forty British pounds) and also have beautiful illustrations.

The main points that are included in this curriculum are circle time resources, nature walk prompts, recipes, craft instructions, and reflections, in addition to some introductory resources on Waldorf principles like storytelling and tables.

My Thoughts on Summer, Stress & Alternative Education

A well-organized home is always my main goal because I know that for us, minimalism, organization and routines mean freedom. Freedom to spend our time as we wish, to put our energy into the things we care about and our money towards stuff that actually matters to us.

With the long winters here, it’s easy to fall into a state of disorganization and unmotivated-ness and I do every year. It’s just the nature of the post-Christmas cold months. Last year, it was easy to motivate myself to clean up shop in the spring as we had big moving plans–but even without that huge change this year, I realize that there’s so much value in taking stock of our stuff, our commitments, relationships and plans each spring.

Somehow in the past year, we already accumulated another trunkload of stuff for Goodwill. I lost clarity on things like kids’ extracurriculars (we don’t need any at these ages–I always feel like we do), how I allocate my time each day, which relationships I pour into and simply my general outlook on life. And when we’re not living in line with our values, I feel crappy. I feel guilty. I feel stressed.

Often we think that to get out of a funk, we need to buy something new, sign up for something new, meet a new person or start a new journey (literally or metaphorically). I would caution against the siren call of novelty and its hypothetically greener pastures, and consider circling back to yourself and your true values instead. If you’re not sure what those are, now is a good time for reflection.

Summer is also a good time to take a nap on a hot, sleepy afternoon–perhaps an outdoor one like this nature baby!

For me this has been made easier by limiting social media and doing more reading and journaling, but those activities don’t speak to everyone.

For my part, when I do this, I realize again and again this very uncomfortable thing: I am not everyone’s cup of tea. When I envision my future as a mom, I think I could be three things.

I could homeschool my kids and love it, and make a circle of friends with other homeschool moms.

I could send my kids to private school and be okay with it, probably make some good friends and it would be less work.

I could send my kids to public school and exist on the fringes with other public schooling crunchy moms. I’d be that annoying lady at PTA meetings who’s harping on how much screens are used in the classroom, trying to incorporate gardening into lessons and harping on how much sugar is served at class parties. Yeah, I’d be THAT mom, y’all.

Sometimes I think life would be much easier if that wasn’t me. But if I tried to be more “normal,” I wouldn’t be living in line with my values and I wouldn’t feel good about our life or myself. But that’s life, coming to terms with who you are and how you fit into this world. I’m no PTA president like my mom was–and that’s OK 🙂