9 Reasons I Love the Summer Issue

Now that the summer issue is out (hooray!), I look forward to the email that starts to trickle in from readers, telling us what articles you loved and what ideas inspired you. (Please never stop sending this email.) The truth is, I look forward to reading the finished issue every season, too! If you’re a subscriber, you can skip this and just go read the summer issue yourself, but if you’re interested, these stories were some of my summer issue highlights.

1. Working on the summer reading guide is one of those gigantic projects that I look forward to all year. (“Sorry kids, I’m reading for work!”) I loved working on every part of it, but finding readalikes for Anne of Green Gables and The Fault in Our Stars was especially fun.
2. Patricia’s column about her nearly two decades of park days with her homeschool group made me cry. In the good way. But also kind of in the envious way because I really wish I had that kind of group in my homeschool life.
3. We had so much fun doing our first homeschool makeover—helping Jenn and Ian shift gears to make their homeschool less school-y while still keeping up with their academic goals. 
4. You know how when your kid gets really excited about something, and you’re trying to figure out how much you should do to encourage that excitement—where do you draw the line between supportive and pushy? Shelli has some great thoughts on how she’s found a balance through her son’s passion for birds.
5. I always want to steal Amy’s art project ideas, but now I really want to steal her relaxed attitude about teaching art, too.
6. This issue features an article by our youngest contributor ever: the talented 10-year-old Catie Burrell, who has Opinions about what musicals should be in your movie marathon.
7. I learned SO MUCH working on our summer boot camp feature for this issue, which is all about things you can do right now to make homeschooling this fall so much more fun. I am probably not going to be taking a sabbatical any time soon, but I am definitely adding more rituals to anchor our days.
8. We got to answer that question that plagues so many homeschoolers: How can an always-homeschooled kid get into college? 
9. It’s made me pretty excited about summer! Now that the summer deadline is behind me, I’m looking forward to planning next year’s science classes, having a Roald Dahl-inspired readathon, using Star Trek to study politics, cleaning out the clutter in my homeschool space, and reading lots and lots of books by the pool. I hope it gets you excited, too!

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