A Tradition I Love

At  the Whitney's house--school is in session year around.  In the winter they leave each day and walk down the street to Highland Park or make a short drive to Highland High School.  In the summer they stay home and learn, learn, learn!  Since moving here I have been able to see first hand Amy's summer program for each of the kids and I am honestly inspired by her effort to make the summer something special for each of them.  It begins each year with a theme and then everything comes together around that.  This year the theme was "Royalty--Sons and Daughters of a Heavenly King."  Once that is decided she puts together individual notebooks for each of them.  Each morning they have a scripture study time and a discussion of what they read that day.  They each sets goals of things they would like to accomplish each summer and give updates on what they are working on.  One I remember hearing about is "learn something new."  They have jobs in the home that each is responsible for and they have a second filled with rewards when they accomplish the various activities each day.  This summer they receive tokens and can pick things out of the treasure box or save them for bigger prizes.  My favorite has been "have lunch with Grandma!"  Thank you Ruth for choosing that one.  Our time together was extra special because I realize that this will probably be our last summer before you are to busy to join in the fun!  In the Whitney home there is always a Harry Potter party with the "butter-beer" and some movie time seeing what Hogwarts has going on.  There is always a weekly trip to the library with each of them coming home is a pile of books to be read and reread until they go back the next week.   In between all of these activities Duncan has been going daily to a reading program for his dyslexia, a speech therapy session, and a weekly violin lesson.  Jane is also doing cello lessons each week.  While he is there the kiddos continue working on making their time filled with learning and fun.  Today they were spy's!                                                                                                                                                                   I have always been touched by how sad Amy is at the end of summer when the kids go back to school.  I'd have been so worn out I would have needed a vacation, but not her.  She begins evaluating what worked and didn't work and begins storing it away for the next summer.  Can't wait to see what theme will be used next year!