I love summer. I love being outside with the kids, playing and laughing together, with not a worry in the world. But lets be real, it takes a lot of planning and preparation to turn the summer months into what you need it to be. Just the thought of summer gets me a little overwhelmed and full of emotions. Summer is busy. The kids are out of school and for our household that means we must find full day care. After camp registrations, there are sporting events, swimming lessons and pool time, family parties and vacations are on the brain too. Plus our children have summer birthdays! Scheduling everything to fit nicely when it should be requires a PhD in time management and a healthy stock of wine!
As much as I want to believe the best parts of summer are the unplanned events that occur spontaneously, I know that they are far and few between. So what do I do? I get a glass of wine, health insurance information and start filling out what feels like 50 registration forms!
Here is how I make summer planning work:
Get out the calendar.
The months of May-August are key. The most important dates for me to highlight first are the last day of school and the first day of the next school year. We find it easiest to plan on a week by week basis, and sometimes we even print out a blank calendar or utilize an Excel spreadsheet, just so we can write down options (before finalizing it in our main calendar we live by). Make sure you are aware and have down any other important dates, like holidays and work deadlines.
Registration forms require a lot of information! Make sure you have the following readily available:
- Contact information for you and your spouse (including employer information)
- Social security numbers for your children
- Your family physician’s contact information
- Your health insurance information
- Emergency contact information
- Medical history and any allergy information
- Payment information
First thing to knock out is summer camp.
We like to enroll in an eight week summer camp but there are a lot of mini camp options out there too! You can schedule camps at different locations or ones that focus on different programs or activities. These camps typically last a week or a few days, allowing you to enroll your child in a variety of activities. Some camps offer both options, to where you can participate in a specific themed camp in addition to utilizing their eight week camp. There are a lot of things you can do, so do what is best for your family and children. For a list of summer camp options, check out the 2019 Ultimate Guide to Wichita Summer Camps & Programs!
Once I have camp scheduled, I plan before and after camp care.
Some camps have full day hours, others offer before and after care separately, and then there are those that don’t offer either of those options. Know what you are working with! If a camp ends at 3 and you work until 5, it is better to know now and determine if you have a solution for those extra hours of the day (and if that is all summer long).
Now back to the calendar, I outline when camp starts and when it ends. There are typically two weeks that are my next thing to focus on. These two weeks are the weeks between when school ends in May and when school starts in August. For me, those are vacation weeks! The alternative is that we have to pay for care, so why not use that time and money doing something together (even if it means we don’t leave our fine city). This was one thing I didn’t know our first year. Scheduling summer vacations deserves its own blog post because this alone could require an entire pot of coffee for planning.
Time for sports, swimming lessons and knowing when the pool is open!
T-Ball and soccer are our summer sports that our children love. We coordinate those sports schedules with our annual swimming lessons, which take up about 4-6 weeks of the summer. For swimming lessons, we try to get those knocked out at the early stages of summer before organized sports start, so we can play in the pool for the rest of summer. We have young children, so water refresher classes on safety are a big deal to us. As for the pool, we will post the hours of the pool for our nearby YMCA on the refrigerator, so we can run over there when we want! Once you know the schedules for sports practice and games, get those added to your calendar or at least block out the time frame that they are scheduled (even if it means blocking out the majority of that day). This is when your unplanned events could happen because maybe a game you blocked out an entire morning and afternoon for took place at 9:00 am. This is where you might find us having a picnic at the zoo together or enjoying time at home!
Family get together events, holidays and birthday parties are the final addition for us.
We blocked out holidays and birthdays for our children on the calendar ahead of time, now just to plan the when and where for everything. If you look for destination places for any of your family events or birthday parties, make sure to lock these down early. Holiday parties and time with families are a favorite for us, so creating events where we can see everyone requires a little planning too. We have twelve planned family birthday parties in the summer! This is where we start coordinating with family on when they plan to have their parties and when we just want to get together for some food, drinks and fun!
However you spend your summer, try and knock out your planning requirements early so you can enjoy it all! Please share any helpful tips your family uses to make summer planning fun!
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