What We Did for Homeschool This Summer

Like the creative title?  I think I'm out of energy for the day, and it's only lunchtime.  On the other hand, we successfully had devotional, family scriptures and prayer, chores, and individual scriptures (which somehow requires a whole lot of my time), before lunch.  I know, those are the things we probably should have had done before breakfast, but it felt like a lot today.

We did some homeschooling-type activities this summer, partly because I like it, and partly to make up for the months following giving birth, in which I didn't even pretend to be trying to homeschool.

This is a list of books we read- some were audio books, and some were books just the two oldest read.


The Cricket in Times Square (A)
Little House in the Big Woods (A)
Little House on the Prairie (A)
The Secret Zoo
The Boxcar Children
Surprise Island (Boxcar Children #2)
Ragged Dick
Wind in the Willows
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
Boys Against Girls
Lincoln's Grave Robbers
The Mummy's Curse (Hardy Boys)
Several Nonfiction books on Egypt, unfortunately chosen at random while at the library.
The Igloo (Nonfiction, about how Eskimo's survived, and how to build Igloos)
Dinosaurs Before Dawn (Magic Treehouse)
The Yellow House Mystery (Boxcar Children #3)


There is no way I could possibly list all the picture books we read, but here are some of our favorites (which we read over and over again throughout the summer), and a few new ones the kids loved:

Curious George
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
May I See the King?
The House That Jack Built
Christina Katerina and the Great Bear Train
The Jester Has Lost His Jingle
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Dear Mrs. LaRue
The First of Octember
Actually, all things Dr. Suess (especially my 5 yr old!)
Amelia Bedelia (Treasury)
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, etc.
The Family Bedtime Treasury: Tales for Sleepy Times and Sweet Dreams
Tikki Tikki Tembo
I'm Not Cute

We did a unit on Egypt.  Kind of slapped together :(.  Someday I'll do a better one, but, we did it.  All about mummies (yuck), culture, pyramids, religion, and a few random facts.  Then Demetri read the Hardy Boys book to finish it up.

We drew lots of pictures.  Many drawing lessons were courtesy of nice people giving children free lessons on youtube.  Thank you.

We started Khan Academy.  The kids beg to play it.  They have to have all their other work done first.  They just discovered the computer programming lessons on there and will spend as long as I let them.  The best part of it is, I don't really have to teach much math.  If they don't understand something, there is a video to show them how.  This makes me very, very happy!

We wrote letters to family and friends.  Not all of them were sent :(, as I found out the more I cleaned, but we have tried.  We started scripture journals.  We cooked, did boy scouts, lots of library, piano lessons, geography, a couple of field trips (Pearl Harbor anyone?).

So, looking back, even though I worry once in a while that we don't get enough formal schooling in, I think they are doing just fine. Half the time they don't even know that what they are doing counts as "school."  And that's the way I like it.