J-‘s now on her summer break. We’ve been thinking of ways to help her use her summer well. There’ll be time for unstructured play and for hanging out with friends, of course, but it’s also good to help her develop initiative and life skills, fighting the temptations of video games along the way.

Both W- and I are working through summer because we’re saving our vacation days for Kathy’s upcoming wedding, so J- will need to be self-driven. She’s pretty good at dealing with the inevitable what-do-I-do-now moments (and we all get those, if we’re lucky). She often practises piano or ukulele, reads a book, or hangs out with friends. We can help by setting some challenges, nudging her to work on mastery or life skills, and giving her feedback on how she’s doing (such as for writing or math exercises).

Overall plans for the summer:

• Read
• Practise music
• Hang out with friends
• Prepare for next school year
• Work on life skills

It’s often easier to pick from a list than to think of something to do in the moment, so here are some ideas for things to do:

Physical

• Swimming
• Biking
• Exercising
• Running, playing in the park

Mental

• Reading a book (critical reading – maybe discussion at dinner?)
• Working on reading exercises
• Working on math exercises
• Going to the library

Creative

• Drawing (comics, sketches, etc.) – maybe put together a sketchbook or comic book
• Writing notes, stories, and so on
• Playing the piano or the ukulele
• Visiting the AGO, the ROM, the science centre, etc.
• Taking pictures
• Exploring arts and crafts (ex: collage, sculpting)

Life skills

• Learning how to cook
• Making life better: cleaning, tidying, looking for ways to improve, etc.
• Volunteering (Free Geek?)
• Learning life skills: taking public transit, biking, etc.
• Negotiating/persuading

Play

• Hang out with friends
• Play video games (time-limited?)
• Play board games

We’ll encourage her to add to this list, too.

We like the way her school uses rubrics to make it clear what excellence looks like. We’re not planning to use one to grade J- for her summer work – grading summer! what a thought – but it might be useful to work out one with her so that she can self-evaluate how she’s spending her time and so that she can motivate herself to push her limits. W- and I thought about the process first so that we can guide her through planning her own. Here’s the draft W- and I came up with:

Thinking of ways to build scaffolds for J-‘s learning through these lists of ideas and rubrics for self-evaluation inspires me to make some of these for myself, too.

What would my discretionary-time activities look like?

Physical

• Biking
• Exercising
• Gardening

Mental

• Reading a book, maybe blogging notse
• Improving development skills

Creative

• Drawing – sketches, presentations, etc.
• Writing notes, stories, blog posts
• Playing the piano
• Visiting the AGO, the ROM, the science centre, etc.
• Taking pictures

Life skills

• Preparing a new recipe or experimenting with a familiar one
• Making life better: cleaning, tidying, looking for ways to improve, etc.
• Learning how to drive

What would a rubric for myself look like?