Preparing for Summer Vacation

There are only three and a half days of school remaining, and I'm starting to prepare for summer vacation. I'm the mom of three active youngsters who would love to just sit around all day playing video games and then complain they're bored.

For almost 6 years I've been doing what I call the "ABCs of Summer" with the kids, to keep them entertained and, when they were little, to teach them their ABCs.

I start with a Word file I use to list every letter of the alphabet and ideas of what we could do for each one. As we have a free day and are looking for something to do, I open the list on the computer and, in Phineas & Ferb fashion, say, "I know what we're going to do today!"

Over the years I've also printed out letter tracing sheets for them to practice each letter; we've done crafts for each letter; we've read ABC books and books that relate to each letter (like Eric Carle's "The Grouchy Ladybug" for the letter "L".)

I love taking family photos, so I also snap a few photos of each activity. To wrap up summer I print the best photo for each activity (some letters have had more than one photo) and put them in a quick scrapbook album for the kids to look at. The album was a nice way for them to memorize their ABCs and was a souvenir of our summer vacation.

This year I decided I'd put my planning and our summer activities in a blog to share. Hope you enjoy!