In the Home

Summer To-Do List: 2026

| Patti Webb

Another school year is done! We have two months to exhale.
If you are anything like us, you’re probably also thinking way far ahead to the next school year, trying to use the season to make sure your kid moves forward, not back.

We gotta have fun, stay active but also rested, make memories, do the summer homework; it’s a tall order. Hopefully, we can do a little bit of everything.

Mary’s List

We’ve crammed the first half of summer. My son will be busy all June with summer camp, swim team, and Taekwondo. The girls are doing swim team this year too, so they’re not just glued to my side like last summer. Fun update for the season: I’m officially on the committee at our neighborhood swim and tennis club, handling social media and membership. It sounds like a lot, but honestly, I’m having a great time with it.

We’re also planning to foster another dog and take a beach trip soon. With all of this layered together, the schedule is basically a jigsaw puzzle. Goal: Don’t drown.

It has been almost six months since I started taking my health and physical well‑being seriously, and I am proud to share that I have lost 10 pounds. I can consistently lift five pounds heavier than before, my average step count keeps rising, and I am down a size. I am proud of what I have accomplished so far and look forward to next month’s progress. Goal: Stay on the Path.

One thing I really do love about summer is getting extra time with the kids. We can dive into projects, spend long afternoons at the pool, explore new places, and squeeze in some science experiments. On our current list: finishing a birdhouse, building a bug motel, starting our summer learning workbooks, watching movies at the theater, and making rock candy. Goal: Do Stuff Together.

All this being said, I definitely have one too many projects on my plate. As per our 2026 Bingo card, I still have Lego sets that need building and a TBR stack I’ve barely made a dent in. My goal this summer is to use the calm, nighttime hours to chip away at them instead of phone‑scrolling or getting sucked into another K‑Drama on Netflix. Goal: Finish It.

Patti’s List

When I was in elementary school, I had such big summer plans that rarely came to fruition. I would take out really thick poetry books from the library and never read them. I would buy new journals and stop writing after 2 weeks. I had no camps, no play dates, just a trip to see family here and there.

The summer game has changed since then, and what our kids do in the summer matters.

Summer Curriculum

On the socials during New Year, a lot of influencers talked about a “personal curriculum”, subject areas that they wanted to take a concerted effort toward learning. This could be learning more about art, or reading a classic book, or joining a hobby group.

This is the first summer we aren’t going on a big vacation. This is also the first summer where I’m not working. Last year, we stayed busy but there were a lot of things that fell by the wayside: reading consistently, tracking summer slide, any other downtime besides couch time.

So we’ve added to our Dopamine Kids dream list and with our Skylight Calendar, we’re taking a more structured approach to fill in the days and figure out our own summer curriculum.

The quick list:

  • Take a walk with the dog after dinner
  • Replace snacks with whole foods
  • Make gaming more social, not mindless
  • Start composting
  • Learn how to crochet
  • Redecorate their rooms
  • Learn to Art Journal
  • Our school’s Summer Reading program
  • Do pushups and sprints everyday

It impressed me that the girls wanted to improve upon their end-of-year test scores, try new things, and get stronger. I’m also working on my personal curriculum as well: creating a regular gym routine, burning through my TBR list, and finding other little projects and recipes to keep the summer fun. Goal: To have something cool to write about when teacher’s assign the “How I spent my summer vacation” assignment.

Girl Scout Camp

This is the first summer we’re doing an official Girl Scout camp. It’s an evening camp, so the girls get together from 5-9pm; doing all the fun scout projects without the blazing sun. We have our second Camporee weekend at the end of the summer and between the two, I think they are going to be officially ready for sleepaway camp in 2027. Goal: Learn independence, build sisterhood, and clock those hours outside.

Mapping and Blocking

Going along with our summer curriculum, part of what (hopefully) makes it work is the structure of the day. I 100% admit that this seems overboard, but I’ve been goal and time blocking in my new project planner for the last few weeks and it’s been really helpful.

I’ve input our daily habits (reading blocks, workbook time, family walks) as repeated events in our daily Google calendar. That syncs to our Skylight so the girls know what the whole day looks like, in addition to camp, tennis practices, special events, and mealtimes. They also have the chore chart and a list of analog things they can do if they are actually bored. Goal: To see what happens when you follow through with a goal.

Sidequest

There are blocks of days in the calendar where the girls have nothing planned. Last year, I defaulted them to the grandparents. This year, I spy an opportunity for an all-girl sidequest: a day trip or excursion to break up the week in/week out. Does this sound exhausting? Yes. But I would be using my unemployed time to do something different now that the girls aren’t such a handful. Goal: Does this count as whimsymaxxing?

Annual Summer Blog break starts now!
Have a great end of the school year, and we’ll be back in July.

~Mary and Patti

OT Month: The Gen A Nervous System

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

A few months ago on Instagram, we ran into a ton of posts about how you can’t parent Gen A kids like they did in the 90’s because they have a different nervous system.

We thought it was an interesting claim; despite that when “influencers” copy the same material word-for-word, it’s usually a sign of clickbait. They even referred to kids having a “Digital Nervous System”, living in a high-speed brain environment.

Continue reading →

Child(ish) Reads: Dopamine Kids, Pt. 2

| Patti Webb

In part 1 of my Dopamine Kids review, I said that Michaeleen Doucleff’s five-step plan is very easy to implement. She walks through each step and gradually builds the plan with each chapter. Just like a textbook, you read the material in the first section and do the direct application right after.

So for part 2, I’m sharing my family plan and how I’ve adapted the steps for A&Z.

Continue reading →

Child(ish) Reads: Dopamine Kids, Pt. 1

| Patti Webb

I was very excited to receive my pre-ordered audiobook of Dopamine Kids by Michaeleen Doucleff. Yes, the same Michaeleen Doucleff from Hunt, Gather, Parent. It has been 5 years since I reviewed that book, and I love how Dopamine Kids fits in so perfectly with all of our Brain-Body posts this month.

Dopamine Kids: A Science-Based Plan to Rewire Your Child’s Brain and Take Back Your Family in the Age of Screens and Ultraprocessed Foods by Michaeleen Doucleff.

Blurb: For the first time in history, we are inundated with “dopamine surges” inside our brains, pulling us to technology and ultraprocessed foods like magnets—every day, many times a day. Over the past decade, neuroscientists have finally begun to figure out how these surges alter our choices, our habits, and even our moods. We’ve learned how dopamine can drive adults and kids to engage in activities that we don’t actually enjoy—activities that can make us feel sad, lonely, anxious, and depressed.

Continue reading →

Reader’s Digest: The Gut and Child Development

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

It seems like we’ve always treated the gut as something that matters.  Just look at our language: gut instinct, you’ve got guts, gut‑wrenching. We use these phrases because, on some level, we know the gut is central to how we sense and respond to the world. We’re not wrong though.

When we say gut, we are referring to the long digestive tube inside the body that starts from the mouth all the way to the stomach and intestines, also known as the gastrointestinal tract (the GI tract). But it does far more than break down food. It’s a major sensory, immune, and communication hub that helps shape how a child’s body takes in and responds to the world.

Because it’s in constant conversation with the brain through neural, hormonal, and immune pathways, the gut plays a meaningful role in mood, sleep, attention, and learning. A healthy, well‑nourished gut becomes a powerful driver of how children grow, adapt, and thrive.

Continue reading →