Summer Expectations Vs. Reality

You know those “Expectation vs. Reality” memes? I need one for my summer. I mean, I already knew it wasn’t going to involve exciting trips to far-off places or music festivals. But I thought, based on our success with remote learning during the school year, that I could pull off an interesting and educational summer at home. I certainly had big plans that seemed cool when I made them up. And I don’t think the summer we had was bad. It just didn’t look anything like my plans. What else is new, right?  

What I Planned

Since traveling is the thing I miss most about pre-pandemic life, I decided to plan a virtual road trip. It was going to be a way to teach the kids geography (a topic that “social studies” never seems to quite cover) while creating a series of fun, sort-of-cultural experiences to fill the kids’ time while I worked and keep summer from feeling too routine. As a bonus, the kids would learn how to do travel research and maybe even get excited about places to see in the future.

Trip Planning

I decided to start close to home and travel North America from Canada to Panama. I would have the kids do online research to find out what’s interesting about each country using websites like Lonely Planet, Culture Trip, National Geographic and a little bit of Wikipedia. Then they would either write a travel report on the country or get creative and make brochures or travel posters.

I didn’t plan out the whole summer, since I wasn’t sure how far we’d get. But I started filling in the North to South itinerary in decreasing detail until I had complete plans through Guatemala. I found movies to watch that were made in the country; identified museums in the country that were available to visit online; came up with YA and middle grade reading suggestions by authors from the country; included some phrases to learn in relevant languages. Since my teen gave me “more hands-on stuff” as feedback on my spring homeschool plans, I found recipes for dishes to represent each country, with the idea that the kids would pick and prepare them themselves. I also found dance styles and/or artists to copy and examples of popular musicians or local music styles to listen to.

I printed out a map of North America from Seterra and taped it on the wall above the kitchen table.

It was a lot of work. I think I ended up taking almost two days off from paid work to set up the plan. But I had a lot of fun doing it, because it really was a lot like getting ready for a big trip. That’s lucky, because otherwise the time would have been completely wasted.

Practice Trip

Eat

We started the Canadian part of the trip as sort of a dry run during the last couple weeks of school. We pulled up pictures of our trip to Victoria a few years ago, and inspired by the teahouse we visited there, planned a tea party. We made scones and whipped cream, and served strawberries, smoked salmon sandwiches, and deviled eggs. It turned into an early, light dinner instead of afternoon tea, but it was tasty and fun.

Watch

We watched the NOVA documentary series Making North America, which turned out to be a lot more geological than I intended. But the host’s genuine nerdy excitement was a bit contagious and we all enjoyed it. The we started Discovery Channel’s North America, narrated by Tom Selleck, which we had to buy, but which was more about habitats and animals. And it was okay, but we never got around to finishing it. I intended to watch the family movie Fly Away Home, too, but we never got around to that either.  

Read

I assigned Anne of Green Gables to my rising middle schooler. I think she finished three chapters. I gave my teen a list of books by Canadian authors to choose from. Her first couple choices were not available for digital check out from our covid-closed libraries. She ended up scanning our own bookshelves and picked Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road. She finished it, but said it was too depressing.

Art

Every day at dinner we listened to a few songs by artists on this list of Canadian musicians. Since most of the bands on the list sucked, we also made them listen to Rush, Devin Townsend and Gorguts. I gave them a list of Canadian museums to check out, which they halfheartedly did. And knowing my teen wouldn’t do it, I assigned the artsy middle schooler to check out these Canadian artists. She was to make art in the style of or inspired by one she liked. She decided she didn’t like any of them and none of them inspired any ideas.

Speak

I made them learn hello, goodbye, and thank you in French.

Endless Summer Road Trip

Here’s the thing about a road trip. It can’t end if you never get started.

The first week of summer was to have been the U.S. leg of the journey. Since we live here, it would be less intensive (thus a good beginning) and focus on indigenous culture. We had a Three Sisters dinner (which was good, but the kids didn’t make it). We watched Hamilton the day it came out on Disney+, and had plans to watch Smoke Signals. I was going to have the tween read Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House and the teen pick something off this list.

Except for watching Hamilton on July 3 (which would have happened anyway), I gave up all attempts to start the virtual car by Tuesday or Wednesday of the first week of summer vacation. There wasn’t an outright mutiny. But throughout the Canada stretch, and especially once school let out, there was just a sort of friction – a slow, silent resistance from the road crew that took a lot of effort on my part to overcome. And despite my own original enthusiasm, I realized that I just didn’t have the energy to play cruise ship activities director to an unwilling crowd.

After a few prompts were met with silence and eyes that never left screens, I abandoned ship. I went into my office and got back to paying work and paid almost no attention at all to what my kids did for the next eight weeks.

What Did They Do?

Well obviously there was a lot of YouTube. My Microsoft reports indicate up to 25 hours a week on social media throughout the summer. Freed from the constraints of academics, we finished Arsenal Military Academy together, and much K-drama was collectively consumed. The teen embarked on a quest to binge-watch all four seasons of Haikyuu!!, and the tween has already completed all 52 episodes of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (which is at least one million times better than the original 1980’s show).

Virtual Travel

Without me force-feeding them travel inspiration, they ended up spending a lot of time on travel planning. My teen became obsessed with the idea of a solo trip to Japan the summer after graduation. Eventually that morphed into a sisters trip, and the girls spent many hours researching touristy things to do in Tokyo and budgeting for activities.

All that travel cost estimation led to an obsession (always close to the surface with my teen) about  making money. Unable to babysit or referee soccer games, she and her sister got the idea for a scented candle business. They obtained an investor (Grandma) who put in $160 for supplies. And they learned how to make candles.

Sisters Scents

Sisters Scents sells 4 oz and 6 oz candles in glass jars in cinnamon, rose, lavender, and vanilla scents, which they sell for $7 and $12 respectively. The middle schooler also developed an unscented rainbow candle. So far, they have sold $106 worth of candles. Running out of friends to direct-sell, they are trying to figure out how shipping works so they can set up an Etsy page to sell online. So they’re not in the black yet, but it’s only been a few weeks, they’ve learned a lot and might actually turn a profit eventually.

It’s not the summer I was planning, but it was good enough. And if you want to buy a scented candle… place your order in the comments.