Children and summer

I'm going to tell you a real life sinario, as it plays out in my own home. Picture this last day of school children get on the school bus, only to go to school get there report cards say one last goodbye to there friends and teachers get back on the bus and start back home. They leave at 7:25, and return at 9:25. My son gets off the bus runs to the house with a grocery sack full of pencils, papers,broken crayons and color pencils, half bottles of dried up glue and markers as well as hard eraser that all gets dropped into the entry way. First thing said is can tommy come over to play (insert name of you choice) when you say not today I get I'm hungry is it lunch time yet. As the day continues on I hear I'm bored a dozen or more times, fighting between him and his sister which ends with "when will he go back to school" from the mouth of babes. And that is only the first half day of summer break. I've told my husband that school is like a double edged sword you want them to go make friends, learn, become more independent, and that happens but with that comes attiude, mouthiness, rolling of the eyes, and the inability to entertain themselves, the need to have 10 to 12 children around them at all times to play with. How do we do it. As summer break is fast approaching I've got to figure out a way to mantain my sanity and make summer enjoyable for my children which doesn't include 20 hours a day of t.v., video game and computer. So here is my goals for summer, I'm going to start the super summer Challenge Think up a great number of things my children can do to earn points but keep them learning, and having fun. When they earn a certain number of pionts they will receive a reward. The activities will be a variety of things like reading writing scrapebooking playing outside, riding your bike, playing catch taking the dog for a walk, raking leaves, scooping poop (someone has to do it) cleaning your bedroom, writing a letter to a relative. writing a story, writing book reports, reading to your little sister. With every point earned, they will get a marble and get to keep all the marbles they earn at the end of the summer. Or for my older child I may use like poker chips where he can use them to work on his math, white chip is worth 1 pt, red is 3 pts, blue is 10, green is 15 or 20 whatever we decide to make them, then he can sort them and add them up as he summer goes to see if he is getting close to earning his prize. That is what I'm going to try to do this summer I will keep everyone posted as to how it is going. It's knda like my list that I made last year about things to accomplish over the summer.