The Alliteration Schedule You Need This Summer

Summer days have a way of blending together! In this episode, Karen shares the simple Alliteration Schedule her family uses to add a little fun, structure, and variety to summer break. From Make Something Monday to Sit & Read Sunday, you'll discover easy ideas for kids, teens, and moms that can help make each day feel a little more intentional—without turning summer into school. 

Transcript

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Hey friends, welcome back to Mom Life in the Woods. I'm Karen Logan with woodlandsmommy.com, and today's episode is brought to you by CoachDion Basketball, the Woodlands most dedicated coach. Make sure you check out CoachDion Basketball at coachdeion.com. That's coachde.com. Today we are talking about one of my favorite summer sanity savers, the alliteration schedule. Now, don't panic. This is not going to be like school or planners or spreadsheets, color-coded calendars, none of that. That's not my style. In fact, it's kind of opposite. This is a simple, flexible framework that can help your summer have a little bit of rhythm, a little bit of structure without making it feel overscheduled. Because if you're anything like me, summer starts off with excitement. Kids are thrilled. We're homeschoolers. So it's like, okay, no more homeschool. I'm thrilled. Well, you start off by sleeping in a little bit, and suddenly it's Tuesday, or maybe it's Thursday, or is it Monday? No, nobody knows. It all the days start to feel the same. And you're wondering what's going on? Where did the week go? Somehow it's time for dinner and nobody's cooking. That's where the alliteration schedule comes in. Let's start with a quick English lesson. Alliteration is when words begin with the same sound. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Or Mickey Mouse, Busy Bees, Silly Snakes. That repeated consonant sound makes phrases catchy and easy to remember. That is exactly why I like using the alliteration schedule in the summertime. Because instead of trying to remember a complicated schedule, you can remember make something Monday, Take a Walk Tuesday, Wet and Wild Wednesday. It just kind of rolls off the tongue. Kids will remember it, you'll remember it, and the theme will give each day a little personality. Now, like I said, this isn't a strict schedule. Every Monday doesn't need to involve a craft project from Pinterest. Definitely, you don't have to go to the water park every Wednesday. The purpose, though, is to create a gentle rhythm. One of the challenges of summer break is that every day can start to really feel the same. The kids wake up, maybe they're allowed to watch TV or play video games. There's snacks, maybe again, more video games, more TV, movie marathons. Maybe there's some arguing thrown in there, arguing with siblings, more snacks, because you know the snacks, the summer is all about snacks. Wash rinse repeat. Gosh, that was a tongue twister. That was hard for me to get out. Wash, rinse, repeat. Okay. Having themed days will help to break up that cycle. It gives the kids and you something to anticipate, even if it's not something over the top. I mean, it's just something different to look forward to every day. It'll help you think of ideas more quickly and it'll help the summer become more memorable. So when your kids look back, they might remember, oh yeah, we Wednesdays were our splash days. Or every Sunday we curled up and read together after church. Those little traditions become part of the story of your summer. Let's start with Monday. Make something Monday is all about creating. For younger kids, that might be crafts. It could be um some type of finger painting or crafting with popsicle sticks. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. Maybe they are building something with Legos or shaping something with play-doh, building a fort for older kids and teens. It could be baking, spending time in the kitchen, or sewing some pajama shorts, making jewelry. They might even be making a YouTube channel or a blog post or something like that. And moms, you get to make something too. Maybe it's a new recipe. You've been trying to do the sourdough starter or sourdough bread, or um maybe you're trying to perfect your grandmother's gumbo, or you want to learn how to make flower arrangements, a garden project. Your Mondays can be about making something instead of consuming. We like to consume a lot. So Monday is all about making, creating. Take a walk Tuesday. That is one of my favorites. The beauty of this one is that it's free. You can walk around your neighborhood, you can go to a local park. I love going to the Woodlands Waterway in the summertime because it gets so hot out here, but in the evening times it starts to cool down. And of course, you're by the water, so it's even cooler. And there's a little bit of activity with people riding their bikes and walking. So um, a place to walk or a nature trail. If you have little kids, they can bring a scavenger hunt sheet. You're a teenager, tell them to bring a friend or a neighbor that can walk with them. You can listen to the Mom Life in the Woods podcast. Or whatever. Listen to a podcast, listen to music while you walk. Or maybe everybody leaves the earbuds at home and you actually talk. Crazy idea, I know. The point though is movement, fresh air, sunshine, a change of scenery, get some steps on that pedometer. Sometimes a 20-minute walk can completely reset the mood for the day. Now we get to the day kids usually love the most. Hopefully, you have a pool in your backyard like so many Texans do. So if you do, then your wet day might be every day because I know in Texas, in the summertime, you're out there swimming every day. But if you don't, if you have little kids, play with water tables. If you have big kids, wash the car together. It doesn't have to be you're running through the sprinklers or you're swimming. It could just be water fun, a pool day. Hey, if you have teenagers or even for yourself, go to Reaver Row Boathouse, kayak, paddle board, have a pool day. I'm not going to recommend the swan boats because they are so cute and they seem like a good idea. But once you're actually on the swan boats in the heat of the summer and you're pedaling and you're pedaling and you're pedaling and you've gone like three feet for every 100 pedals, that's not so fun. But wet and wild Wednesday, sit beside the pool with an iced coffee, mom, while somebody else splashes. I mean, my youngest daughter, if I take her to the pool, you better believe she's trying to splash me. So if I'm sitting poolside and she splashes me, that's my wet and wild. And guess what? That counts. No guilt. Let's talk about Thinking Thursday. It's not about turning summer into another school semester. Although, hmm, I'm not exactly opposed to that idea now that I think about it. Thinking Thursday, though, is simply about giving our brains a workout. Just like our bodies need movement, our minds need challenges as well. Now, for younger kids, it might look like doing puzzles or brain teasers or strategy games, memory games. It could very definitely be doing some pages in a Ku Mon workbook or a Brain Quest workbook. I love doing those books throughout the summertime. You do one or two pages a day, every day in the summer, and by the end of the summer, you've completed the book. For teenagers, it might be a game of chess or checkers or sudoku, crossword puzzles, logic puzzles, Rubik's Cubes, some type of trivia board games that require strategy. And those things are just as fun for adults. Now, mom, you're thinking Thursday might be sitting down for 20 minutes and you know, tackling a crossword puzzle or a game of chess with your teenager. It could be rounding up the family for a game of scatteries or katan. We have that game. I think we played it once or twice. It does require some brain power. So something like that that requires a little bit of strategy, a little bit of thinking. You could also watch a thought-provoking documentary together and discuss it afterwards. Not to make it like a classroom project, but just you know, discussing what you just saw. Did you know that? Did that surprise you? What would you have done? Those kind of conversations. They help our kids learn how to think. One thing I love about Thinking Thursday is that it reminds us that entertainment doesn't always have to be passive. We can laugh and compete and solve problems and stretch our brains at the same time that we're being entertained and having fun. And who knows, you might discover that your quiet teenager is secretly a chess master, or your third grader can absolutely destroy everyone in the game of sequence. Now, by Friday, everybody's ready for something special. Again, doesn't have to be expensive. You could have a pizza and movie night, go visit a park, go bowling, play board games, have ice cream Sundays for dessert. Teenagers might do the escape room. We did breakthrough. I think it was on our spring break, and it was a lot of fun. My teen and preteen, they really enjoyed it. Go play mini golf, coffee shop outings, mall crawl, anything you can do to get the family together and doing something fun. And moms, I know that the greatest gift we can give our children is the shared experience. So I think that whatever it is that they want to do, you participate. It becomes a treasured memory because relationships are built through time together. Family Fun Friday is simply a reminder to prioritize that connection. Now, Saturday is for getting out there. Think about adventure. Maybe farmers markets, the Woodlands farmers market at Grogan's Mill happens every single Saturday, rain or shine. I think if there's a thunderstorm or if there is a lot of lightning, they may postpone it or they may cancel it. But for the most part, if it's raining, it's still gonna happen. If it's snowing, it's still gonna happen. Go out to a nature preserve and do some hiking, bike rides, festivals, spending time outside at an outdoor concert. We have the free outdoor concerts coming up in the summertime. There's waterway nights, there are the performing arts programs that are free at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Just spending time outside, fresh air, vitamin D, explore a new area, volunteer to do something outside, walk dogs. I know we like to spend time inside, especially when you're in Texas. It's just so hot in the summertime, but the older I get, the more I realize how much sunshine improves my mood. A little sunshine can go a long way. So I just want to encourage you to make one day, preferably that Saturday, so it can be sunshine Saturday, the day that you really make a concerted effort to get out of the house and spend a significant amount of time outdoors. And finally, sit and read Sunday. This might be my favorite of all because reading is one of those activities that is becoming increasingly rare. For little kids, you can read aloud together if they don't read by themselves. I like to get the family together from time to time and just read. It could be from a poetry book, it can be a magazine article. Graphic novels count, magazines count, audiobooks count. However, people like to read. Reading about horses, that totally counts. Reading about makeup or sports, the goal is reading. It's not forcing everyone to love the same book. Like I said, I like to do read alouds, and I've loved to do that throughout my kids' youth and childhood. And sometimes that's just how it is. Everybody's not going to enjoy the same book to the same level, but it's nice to have that shared experience. But for a sit and read Sunday, it doesn't have to be the same book. Let them pick what they like to read. Moms, you read something too. I'm not talking about emails, reading social media posts, nah, an actual book or a devotional or a magazine. Something that nourishes your mind. Create a quiet corner. Y'all could do it in the same room, outside on the porch, in your separate rooms, but it's reading time. Make some tea, make some lemonade, slow down. So that's the alliteration schedule. Make something Monday, take a walk Tuesday, Wet and Wild Wednesday, Thinking Thursday, Family Fun Friday, Sunshine Saturday, and sit and read Sunday. And that is not carved in stone. You can change it up and make it whatever you want to make it. I encourage you to keep it alliteration based because you'll remember it. But uh find something that works for you and your family. And remember, this is not a checklist. It's not another thing that you have to do. It's just a framework, just a rhythm. A way to give your summer a little bit of shape, a little bit of variety. If you don't do any of these, if you do one or two of these each week, that's fine. If you can adapt them to fit your family every day, or even beyond the summer, that's even better. The goal is not about perfection, it's just about being intentional. Thank you so much for spending a little time with me today. If you are enjoying Mom Life in the Woods, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And if you're looking for more summer fun ideas, don't forget to visit summer dot woodlandsmommy.com. Until next time, enjoy your summer, enjoy your families, and I'll see you soon right here on Mom Life in the Woods.