Thoughts on a Summer routine

Summer is almost here for us!  School will officially finish next Friday!  I think I'm more excited than the kids.  I have tons of great plans for our summer.  Now that I don't have any super needy babies in the house and my only consistent napper takes one regular nap a day it is going to be easy and fun to plan activities for summer time.

I'm just trying to figure out the right kind of routine for us.

One - we need to keep the house up.  This includes but is not limited to keeping up with laundry, dishes, the living room cleaned up, and dinner on the table every night.

Two - I want to plant a small garden.  I'm going to get each of the kids and myself a tomato plant and we're going to plant them in the backyard.  Each one will be responsible for watering and caring for their plant and will also get to pick the produce off of their plants.  I think I'm going to make a graph to keep track of how many tomatoes we get off of each plant.  I'm going to plant a cucumber plant or two as well because those grew well for me the one year and my kids and KOJ love cucumbers.

Three - I want to spend a lot of time out of the house.  We are stuck in our house all winter long and I want to spend as much time as possible out.  At parks, at the fountains, at the pool, at VBS, at friends' houses, on walks, at the children's museum on super hot days, at the library weekly. 

Four - I want to do some summer specific learning things.  I'm not sure what or how I'm going to do this yet, it's in early development stages.  We'll see.

So here's what I'm considering for a routine.  Having a designated day for each particular activity.

For example:
Monday - Park play
Tuesday - water play day (this could be the fountains, the pool, the sprinkler in the backyard
Wednesday - make something day - a craft, a special snack, a fun game/activity
Thursday - Miscellaneous fun play day - this could include bowling, the children's museum, playdates, etc.

Friday - Library day


If we get a routine down we could easily be loaded up and leaving the house by 9:30 every morning and come home by noon for Sierra's nap.  I'm planning to do dinner in the crock pot and make ahead each weeks meals on Mondays during Sierra's nap.  This way I can just dump the appropriate bag in the crock pot, turn it on, and go about our summer fun.  Pre-packing lunches the night before so we can grab them and take them with us will be instrumental as well.  Getting the kids into the habit of unloading the dishwasher asap in the mornings is going to be vital.  I think some down time for all of us while Sierra naps will be important.  We can do our "gardening" in the afternoon and maybe daily walks around the neighborhood too.

So that's what I have in mind so far.  We'll give it a go and I'll let you know how it works for us.