Summer Adventure With God
by Tidbits From a Teacher
As a teacher/librarian, I love my summers,
particularly when my children were young and at home. Summer began with long days with my kids, but
at the end of each day I felt as if I had accomplished nothing of significant
value with my own children. At school, I
taught up to 150 students a day. They
left my library classroom excited to read, with a new discovery about their
world, and thrilled with the adventure of learning. What was wrong at home with mom/teacher? No lesson plans!
School required me to spend hours planning for the
following week’s learning experiences.
Yet, I assumed that my summer days with my own children would magically
produce the same results as what happened in my classroom. My summer strategy became creative, fun,
discovery lesson plans. And summer has
not been the same. Lesson plans at
school involved mental and physical exercises, review, technology, music,
exciting discoveries, modeling, and practice; each week revolved around a
theme.
Lesson Plans
for Summer 2016:
The theme for our Summer became an “Everyday Adventure
With God.” It included several aspects:
1.
Mornings With Jesus
2.
Chores for the Day
3.
Service Project
4.
Educational Discovery
5.
Fun Activity
Mornings With Jesus. God invites us to be still and know He is God
and to present our petitions and requests to Him (Psalm 46:10 and Philippians
4:6). These were times at breakfast where we read a short devotional from a
summer devotional book and prayed over our day. You could even keep a Summer Prayer
Journal. Write prayer requests as well
as praises and answered prayers. During
this time, we committed our day, our activities, our actions, and our words to
honor Jesus.
Chores for the
Day. God created us for good works
(Ephesians 2:10); we have the responsibility to teach our children the
privilege of work. Chores always
included making our bed; dressing for the day; cleaning up after ourselves in
the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.
It could also
include taking turns making breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner. It always included one big chore: picking up sticks, cleaning out our closets,
weeding through our toys, washing the dog or front porch, taking out the
garbage, meal planning and grocery shopping, vacuuming or dusting, doing
laundry, or scrubbing floors or bathrooms.
Preparing kids for the chore makes the chore easier to accomplish. It also must be completed before the fun of
the day begins.
Service Project: God calls us not only to love Him but to love
others. Further, we are called to serve
one another as good stewards of God’s gifts to us (1 Peter 4:10-11). Our children will fall in love with serving
others when we involve them in our service to others. Brainstorm ways to serve others in your
community: visiting the elderly, yard
work for someone unable to do it, clean someone’s house, take food to someone
sick, pick-up garbage in your neighborhood, offer to watch someone else’s
children, pick out a couple of your favorite toys to share with someone who has
none, offer to help at church. Service
projects often require more than a day of your time. But fully involve your children. Make it exciting and fun! Love on the people even as you serve
them.
Educational
Discovery. “Do not conform any
longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind” (Romans 12:2). Children love to learn.
They need to be taught to think and to use their minds wisely. Make every opportunity a learning
opportunity.
Give children a budget for fun food at the grocery
store. Teach them to shop wisely. Use Monopoly money or play money to reward
your children. Set a goal for a special
treat with earned play money. Teach
delayed gratification: you could buy
this $5.00 toy with what you have earned or save $15.00 and go roller
skating.
Pick a topic to study for the week in the area of
science or social studies. Science could
include rain forests, ecosystems, gardening, crime scene investigation, animals
and their habitats, weather. Social
studies could include government, history of places you will vacation, Native
Americans from your area. Look up
National Geographic videos and Youtube videos on your study. Go to the public library and discover more
about your topic. Create a mini-project
that is age-appropriate for your children.
My kindergarten students are capable of completing an acrostic on R A I
N F O R E S T, a characteristic of the rainforest for each letter. Display your children’s project for others to
see.
Check out and read books. Give your children and yourself at least 30
minutes each day to read. Reading
increases memory, vocabulary, and information.
Make sure you check out both fiction and nonfiction. Boys particularly like books of facts and
information (nonfiction).
Fun Activity. Teach your children to have fun in ways that
cost little to no money. All fun
activities should involve physical activity.
Children need to play to learn how to socialize and to grow both gross
motor and fine motor skills. Take a
hike, play at the park, bike ride, rollerskate, swim, play ball, play outside
games.
Discover activities in your area by looking in papers,
magazines, and on the internet. There
are caves to spelunk, trails to be hiked, fish to be caught, games to be taught
and played. Activities bond families
together and make great memories.
Activity Ideas:
Field Day –
Invite families to join you in creating a Field Day for your kids. Each family plans 2 – 3 Field Day
activities. Each game or activity is
played one at a time; involve parents in the egg toss or relay.
Water Sports
– Have a water gun and water balloon war.
Invite the neighbors. Set up
teams. The wettest team loses and serves
the “water”melon.
Campout –
Have a family or friend campout. Have a
campfire. Have a mini-hayride in the
back of a wagon or pickup truck.
Family Movie
Night – Pick a family movie and watch it outside. Fill the kiddy pool with ice and popsicles
and drinks. Serve fancy popcorn.
Old-Fashioned
Games – Teach your kids to play an outside game you played as a kid: badminton, tennis, flashlight tag, croquet,
kick-the-can.
Storytelling by
a Bonfire – tell favorite stories by the bonfire or get a book on CD and
listen outside.
Stargazing –
Lay out and watch the stars or fireworks.
Zoo Scavenger
Hunt – Take pictures of specific animals at the zoo.
Hopefully, these ideas will get your creative juices
pumping. Share your ideas with other
parents. Make this a memorable
summer. Minimize technology unless you
are using the internet for research or your phone for taking pictures. Create a Summer Photo Journal about the
Summer of 2016. Every day is a gift from
our Creator who shares His creativity with us.
Capture your children with an intentional relationship making the most
of each moment.
“Be very careful then, how you live – not as unwise
but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil”
(Ephesians 5:15-16). God has charged us
to raise our children well. So many
things vie for our children’s attention and affections. We have the privilege
and responsibility to counter the culture.
It starts with wise planning.
