The summer of reading, rest, and art appreciation. Every year, I try to evaluate where we are at, what we need, and how we can best spend our summer. After a year of many appointments (8-10 a week) and lots of activities, I mostly want to rest. We will still have multiple appointments each week, but thankfully, a few of those are coming to an end.
I want this summer to be a time where we can spend several days at home most weeks, enjoying time outside with the water mat, bikes, ninja course, and more. I also want to encourage my children to continue reading for fun and to improve fluency.
Overall, those were my goals for this summer: lots of reading and relaxing, with some pool and river time thrown in.
However, my boys have fallen in love with the Restorationists book series and, in turn, with Van Gogh and other famous artists. So, I have decided to find very easy and low-stress ways to include the fine arts in our summer./
I did not want something that would feel like a chore to them or me, so I am not adding a big class or plan. We are going to finish the restorationist series on audiobook during any driving time, and we have a fun day trip planned to the art museum with their cousins.
We also had the opportunity to stop at the Van Gogh Immersive Experience on our way to a camping trip last weekend, and I highly recommend it if you have an art lover in your life. We were fortunate enough to be going right by where it was only about a week before it closed, and we grabbed tickets at 40% off! My eight-year-old was already talking about wanting to go back before we ever left the parking lot!
Other than those two things, I am simply coming up with a list of ideas that we can implement, and whenever we have time, I’ll choose one from the list.
For example, Nana with You ARE and Artist has some great art lessons, including ones about famous artists. For example, here are several great ideas for Van Gogh.
HiGASFY has some fun videos about Van Gogh and other artists; there are library books, virtual art museum tours, and more that will only take a few minutes and require little to no prep from me.
This will allow them to dive deeper into their interests while not adding work to my plate this summer. Having a list to choose from, rather than a detailed plan, will also help me feel like I’m not failing if not everything gets done. (Tell me I’m not the only one who struggles with that.)
If interest remains strong in the fall, we can be more structured with one of the fine arts courses from You ARE an Artist.
I am adding the list of summer fun fine arts activities to the free content library, including links to some great virtual tours, so if you want to dive into fine arts this summer, make sure to grab it! You can also grab our free summer reading log to help encourage and track reading this summer.
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