The following is a post from contributing writer Jen at Forever, For Always, No Matter What
It’s that time of year when many of us are counting down the days until our last official day of school. Here 10 ways to wrap up the school year.
1. Order curriculum/books for the next year – If you know what works for your family and know what curriculum you want for the fall, order it before the end of the year. You won’t spend the summer looking for the “perfect” materials (they don’t exist anyway!).
2. Set goals for a new year – Spend some time thinking about goals for the new year. Goals for yourself and each of your children, as well as your family as a whole.
3. Set goals for summer “school” – Summer is a great time to work on life skills like gardening and yard maintenance.
4. Create a bucket list for summer activities – Spend a family dinner or two creating a list of fun activities that everybody would like to do over the summer. It doesn’t have to be extravagant, but simple things like picking strawberries, catching fireflies, grabbing an ice cream from the ice cream truck.
5. Put together summer school workbooks – Summer is also a great time to brush up/keep up on basic skills. Create a small workbook/notebook of math drill sheets, word searches, vocabulary sheets, anything that would be great for a rainy afternoon.
6. Schedule exit interviews – Plan a date with each of your children to talk about the year, what they liked/didn’t like, things they might like to learn about in the coming year.
7. Have a meeting with the principal – Schedule time to talk about the year with your husband. Just like with your children, talk about what worked and what didn’t work for your year. Sometimes our husbands can view the big picture better than we can, because we tend to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of our school day.
8. Plan a day of reflection – Plan some time by yourself to reflect on the year and see what you might want to change for the following year.
9. Write a letter to each of your children – Write a letter to each of your children talking about the school year. Focus on the positive changes that they made over the year, save the things they need to work on for another day.
10. Have an end of the year picnic/party – This needs no explanation, have a fun afternoon and give yourselves a pat on the back for a job well done!
How will you wrap up your school year?
Jen is a wife to one amazing husband and mom to six energetic kids. Visit Forever, For Always, No Matter What where she blogs about their Catholic faith, homeschooling and adoption.
This post is linked to Top Ten {Tuesday}.
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I’ve done 1, 2 & 3 – need to work on the rest of the list! 🙂
What great ideas, Jen! I love the writing of a letter to each child, focusing on what they accomplished during the year. I also think the meeting with the principal is very important, too, not only for his input, which could be invaluable, but to make him feel important and “in the loop.” 🙂
Thanks Lisa, the letter is one of my favorites too!
What a great way to wrap up the year, Jen!
I love the idea of writing of a letter to each child, focusing on what they accomplished during the year! What a wonderful way to end on a positive note 🙂 Thanks for the wonderful ideas.
Thanks for your comment Ann-Marie! Glad you found it helpful.
Great list! In the past I would have already ordered and planned next year by now, but I decided to take it slow this year and focus on finishing and staying present for the last month or so. I did, make goals (big goals, no specifics) for next year and goals for the summer. Looking forward to my meeting with the principal!!!