Over the years, we’ve done a variety of things during our summer homeschool months. Kids with ADHD need structure, and while I’ve usually offered a break from our core subjects, we usually do something over those summer months to provide a structure. Some summers, we’ve focused on those subjects and activities we didn’t have time for during the school year: hands-on science, music appreciation, art, and nature study. But another fun option is to focus on skills. A skills-based summer can look different for each family and each child based on their ages and interests. The goal is to evaluate what sets of skills you want to work on and create a structure to help you strengthen those skills.
Ideas for a Skills-based Summer
Keyboarding
Typing is a skill I love to start early. There are so many benefits to learning to type. For my early learners, typing provided a great reinforcement for letter recognition, especially matching lowercase to uppercase letters since most typing programs show the letters in lowercase while the keys themselves are uppercase. My favorite beginner program is DanceMat Typing. Not only is it free, but it is very engaging.
Once my kids progressed past DanceMat, Keyboarding Without Tears has been my favorite. Especially for my dyslexic daughter, practicing typing provides reinforcement for spelling skills and copywork. She is copying sentences and even paragraphs, with correct spelling and punctuation, without the added brain function of actually writing the letters. Plus, the typing program alerts her when she has typed a word incorrectly.
Coding
For my oldest, who has great typing skills and regular practices them by typing out the stories from his creative mind, coding and computer skills are more of a focus during the summer. My son loves Scratch.com and coding his own ideas for comics and games. This summer, we are also taking advantage of the free promotion from HomeschoolBuyersCo-op for CodaKid. Through CodaKid, my son is learning to write his own code in Roblox.
Large Motor Skills
This summer, my goals for my youngest have been especially skills-focused. In the Pacific Northwest, so many of our months are rainy and miserable. So during the few months when the sun is shining, my little guy is learning to ride his bike without training wheels, to swing on his own, and to tie his shoes. Yes, I just realized he doesn’t know how to tie a shoe. And I’ve also realized, they don’t make shoes that tie for his age! So we are working on that this summer, with his big brother’s shoes.
Other great skills for kids would be climbing, mastering the monkey bars, and tumbling skills like hand stands, cart wheels, back bends, flips, somersaults, etc.
Sports Skills
Set some sports goals for your child based on your families’ interests: swimming, basketball, baseball, track and field, soccer. Whatever your child’s interest may be, set some goals for learning the rules of a game or mastering a particular skill necessary for that sport. For us, while my youngest is practicing riding his bike, my oldest is working on some basketball skills. Track is another sport that we’ve enjoyed participating in as a family during the summer. My son also has some personal fitness goals for himself and has recently pulled out some of our exercise videos. He’s loving Tony Horton’s original P90.
Creative Skills
For down time, I love to get my kids being creative. Our home library is full of Lego-idea books. My daughter, for instance, built her own Lego board game (Thirsty: the object is to make it to the lemonade stand), a mind puzzle, a candy-dispenser, and a checkerboard.
For several summer and Christmas breaks, we’ve also loved our See the Light Art class DVDs. While these are an initial investment, it has paid off. My kids have spent hours over the years watching and practicing the drawing skills and color techniques taught in these videos. We’ve also tackled watercolor, chalk and oil pastels, paracord and rubber band crafts, comic sketches, and a variety of other creative activities.
Music skills are another creative skill that provide great down time for a child that needs the opportunity to re-regulate themselves. When my oldest is feeling down or out of control, playing his guitar is especially helpful. My daughter also likes to comfort and calm herself with music. Our local library offers a wealth of resources that include both music books and instructional DVDs.
Gardening and Cooking Skills
Let your child plan and care for a garden space, harvest the fruits and veggies, and cook a meal with the produce! Such a range of skills can be taught through gardening and cooking, and it’s a great way to strengthen executive functioning skills in a subtle, engaging way.
Self-Management Skills
Through each of these different skills and interests, there is a great opportunity to teach self-management and executive functioning skills. Especially if you have a child with ADHD, allowing your child to work on these areas in a safe, non-pressure environment is a great summer goal. Each time we have either a summer or winter break, our first activity is for my kids to create their own bucket list, to list out all of the activities and projects and excursions they would like to include in our planning. I do set some ground rules, usually limiting how much of those activities would require me taking them somewhere. But overall, I allow them the opportunity to explore their own interests and set their own goals. This bucket list also becomes a great tool to refer them to when they come to me saying that they are bored.
This summer, I’m also allowing my older two to practice creating their own schedule or routine. Because our family routine is so much more relaxed during the summer, it’s the perfect time to allow them to practice some of the skills, to try and fail and make adjustments, without it dramatically affecting the rest of the family or their schoolwork. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m excited about the potential to help coach them in finding what works for their ADHD minds and creative personalities.
There is so much to learn, and learning encompasses so much more than just math and reading. Just because you are taking a break from the books, doesn’t mean you are taking a break from learning. A skills-based summer is a great solution for providing a little bit of structure while still getting the break that we all need at the end of a homeschool year.
