First Day of Summer Vacation

Do you remember how magic it felt, the bell ringing on the last day of school? Waking up to the first day of break, knowing that the whole summer stretched out in front of you?
The summers of my childhood were usually completely void of schedules. I was just free. Free. I didn't wear shoes from mid-June through to September. We'd roam the block all day long on bikes, with wagons and scooters. There were kids, lots of them. Nobody seemed to watch us, and the babysitter was inside with her soaps. I think we came in for a quick lunch and a quick dinner, but would head right back outside for kick the can and ghost in the grave yard as twilight turned into dark.
It was perfect.

Now though, summers are  mostly a contrived thing. I think they're sadly less enchanting. Kids wear shoes and don't slip out the door to play on the sidewalks all day. There are camps. Sleep-aways and day camps. Mini-camps, horse camps, clay camps, theater camps, Lego camps, drama camps, dance camps, science camps, music camps, tennis camps. And everybody goes to them.

There's no neighborhood gang of kids really. They're all at camp. Either that, or they're having "playdates".  It seems kind of sucky to me. What happened to good ole' summer? Where emptiness and space was the promise of creativity and fun.

Oh well, I guess it's what you make of it. I plan to make this summer pretty non-committal , so our days are free to roam and to run slowly run into one another. I hope we're outside, a lot. Without shoes. That we sit by the water and imagine.

Here is a recent article that really resonated with me. It's about the power of "No" during the summertime. How to set the stage for wide open days.

Here's what we did this afternoon, after that last school bell rang......

We walked over to the library for some books, and then spread out the picnic blanket in the park. Noah rode his bike and played with the bubbles from the fountain. Somebody put bubbles in the fountain!
(Btw, this park in the center of my town, now has free city wi-fi. It booth freaks me out....radio waves! and amuses me.)
I read some of the ebook that I downloaded and printed off for June. Little Acorn Learning's June Enrichment book! Lots of crafts and projects and recipes and stories and poems and songs to have fun with. I CAN'T WAIT to celebrate the summer solstice. Noah too. That's what we'll be learning about next week.