Keeping Your Child Learning During the Summer Break

Maintaining the educational progress that kids have gained through the school year becomes more difficult during the summer months.  Kids tend to shift from a learning mode to a totally free, unfettered play mode during the summer.  Their lives are filled with days in the pool, sleepovers at friends’ houses, and fun and frolic.  While there is nothing wrong with fun and a release from the school year, the absence of anything educational during this respite often results in loss of learning when the kids return in the Fall.  How can you maintain the gains they made during the school year while still allowing them to have some free time and fun?   Here are a few tips:

1) Establish a summer schedule.  They have a schedule during the school year, so why not continue this idea through the summer months. If they view summer as only a time for fun, they will lose the valuable connection that keeps their minds open to learning.  Something as simple as saying that “at 3:00p.m on MWF we will read,” can go a long way toward keeping in touch with basic skills.  So have a summer schedule, which is much looser than the school  year schedule, but still requires some time with valuable skills.

2) Make it fun.  Learning can be fun and you can establish that early in the summer, it is to your advantage.  Take kids to the library on Mondays.  Allow them to check out a book on their level or slightly above.  Tell kids that they will have a short book report on what they read at the end of each week and you will ask them questions afterwards.  Kids like to “play school.”  If they see learning as fun, they are more likely to take part, and this keeps them reading during the school break.

3) Incorporate math skills into everyday activities.  Cooking is an example of an activity where math is openly used.  Teach kids about measurement by asking them how many teaspoons are in a cup and other measurement skills while you help them bake cookies.  Make it fun but drill essential skills while the activity is going on.

4) Inspire kids to use thinking skills.  One way you can focus on thinking skills which are often testing on standardized tests are to make up stories or mysteries in which they  have to infer or evaluate information to figure it out.  A simple way to do this is to have them play a computer game or solve a puzzle.  There are many of these available online.  Find something that challenges their ability to use independent thinking to solve a problem.  This will keep them thinking and teach them important deductive reasoning skills they will need both in school and in life.

5) Use technology.  While kids can be involved with technology too much, it is also an effective tool to keep them learning.  Since they are so familiar with smart phones, computer games, and so forth, have them use this technology to learn skills.  There are many educational games online at sites like: http://www.funbrain.com which test kids’ knowledge while also being a lot of fun to play. Check out sites like this and see how they will work on skills without getting bored.

While it is not easy to motivate kids to work on skills during the summer breaks, it can be done if approached in a planned but light-hearted manner.  Look for fun activities online or consult with your child’s school for more ideas.  You CAN keep your kids learning during the summer months, and have them ready to return in the Fall with less regression.

Elizabeth Wright is a professional blogger that provides information and advice for early childhood education and after school care in Miramar FL. She writes for The Learning Experience, a leading Day Care Center.