Our Summer Plans and Mother’s Timetable: 2024

We finished our 2023-2024 Homeschool year this week and are officially done with Year 3 and Kindergarten! Though we will continue a handful of family read alouds, and some math lessons, we’re very much looking forward to the Summer season.

Summer, for us, is a time when I can be more intentional, filling our days with more truth beauty, and goodness from outside the home and where habits and rhythms are born and/or reset. 

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Summer plans aren’t just for kids though. This mom longs for Summer days sitting in the mountains by a lake, nose-deep in a book while the children hunt for shells and treasure on the shore. However, I also know as a homeschool mom, that there is intentional investment, and good work to be done to continue to cultivate household habits, prepare for the new school year, continue to nourish my own mind and body, and partner with my children to help them do the same. 

When it comes to any planning, I am a physical pen and paper gal. It’s nothing fancy, really. Just a simple collection of lists, notes, ideas, and reasons for our plans that I’ve taken time to reflect on and think through. I like to use the ideas note pages from my planner for this. To keep things somewhat organized here, I’ve divided my Summer time plans into three categories– habits, morning rhythm, and home.  

Habits for my children

For reference, my children are 5 and 8. This summer I plan to come alongside my oldest in helping her meal prep their breakfasts for the week, which will make it easier for her to grab breakfast for the two of them while I finish up my morning walk, prepare my own breakfast, set the homeschool table, and start the laundry. While my oldest prepares breakfast, my youngest will be in charge of taking care of the dog (letting her out of the kennel, opening the dog door, feeding her, and refilling her water dish).

We will continue to work through improving chore zone skills like laundry, bathroom cleaning, backyard tidying, and good hygiene.

Since last Summer, my youngest has made huge strides of progress in his food sensory development and now eats a variety of foods easily. The habit of reintroducing different food textures and varieties consistently at every meal has really paid off and we’re grateful for his overcoming. We will continue to make it a habit of adding more fruits and veggies to all of our plates, and go-to’s for in-between snacks rather than boxed and bagged treats (which we still enjoy from time to time).

Habits for mom

By the end of a homeschool year, it’s a really good time to reevaluate and refresh my routines for my body, spirit, and mind. In the mornings, I have two hours to wake, read, pray, and nourish my body before my children come out of their rooms. I’ve often come up against in my early mornings the struggle of not knowing what to read, how to get my body moving, or what to eat for breakfast, leaving me feeling as if my time slipped away from me completely.

I began writing out my weekly Schole reading, making a list of home management tasks I needed to do, and deciding that a 30-minute walk with worship music every morning was just what I needed to set myself up for a better morning routine. Sitting down every Sunday to plan a new week has helped me with my morning habits.

I’ve reworked my mother’s timetable to reflect how I plan to order my days during the summer now that we have a smaller homeschool block. While I hold my timetables loosely, creating timetables for my days has been my favorite tool for taking my time and using it diligently.

Summer is also the time I can add a few extra hours to create OCN products so I will be diligently creating the next Homeschool Planner and other products and content on my list for 2024.

Why A Mother’s Timetable

I like having my own timetable because 1) homeschooling isn’t the only thing on my daily schedule, 2) having my mother’s timetable mapped out before the homeschool year begins really helps me see and trust that other things outside of homeschool lessons can get done because I put in the work to map it out and over the summer I’m able to sort of try it out in our Summer rhythm and 3) I don’t have to feel overwhelmed by trying to cram and do all the things on the weekends. 

CATEGORIZING MY TIMETABLE

If you’ve been reading my blog or Instagram posts for a while, you’ll be familiar with the categories that I fit into my timetable:

• Mother Culture
• Physical
• Home Education
• Family
• Work
• Home

Morning Table Time

Though the end of a homeschool year gives us a less structured rhythm, I notice how important having small daily rhythms throughout Summer break makes a difference to start a new homeschool year strong. Therefore, we will continue with arithmetic lessons, and family read alouds a couple times a week before lunch time. We will also hold a 30-minute block in our afternoons for the habit of independent reading.

Our family read alouds this summer include:

• Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater
• Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Home and Leisure

This homeschool year I would like to create another master meal plan for the homeschool week which will help with dinner and lunch prep when lessons begin, taking the everyday meal prepping task to a more automatic habit on repeat. I plan to keep our lunch menu relatively the same each week, at least for a term at a time, so that I can delegate help to my children for preparing lunch each day.

Using my Summer purposefully is something that I know will give us a strong start at the beginning of our upcoming homeschool year, but Summer won’t look like anything uncommon, necessarily. We are not filling the calendar with endless outings and events to stay busy and are minimal formal lessons. We get to live a restful and intentional life this way. I get to cultivate and freshen up habits and rhythms that will ultimately bless us in the long run, especially when we begin homeschool again.

Summer plans are already being made, and I pray I can remain present in the season, soaking in the sunshine and savoring the memories we’ll make!

I hope this was helpful, insightful, and encouraging to you in some way.

Do you make big Summer plans or keep things light and casual throughout the season?