Those long days of summer are just around the corner. The kids leave their desks and textbooks behind sometime in June, depending on the school. What doesn't vary, though, is that need to create some kind of structure over the break. Yes, it's great to sleep in every day, but what happens when the novelty wears off and the whining starts?
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Every summer in our family we try to set out for new adventures. A few weeks before school is out, we sit down with our 12-, 10- and 6-year-old, and discuss what we’d like to do during their vacation. It's a balancing act between our still-busy schedules (someone's got to run the house and pay the bills) and their complete lack of schedule. But we make it work.
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Each morning, I squeeze in a couple of hours of blogging and planning for my craft show while the kids play around the house, read or watch a little television. But then the rest of the day is focused on discovering and doing things that normally strict schedules prevent. There’s talk about going to the pool, visiting family and learning new things.
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For this year’s break, I created a checklist of ideas. As we complete each activity, we can mark them off. Our summer “to-dos” will keep boredom away, give us things to look forward to and create lots of memories in the process.