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Fun in the Sun: Maintaining Academic Skills Over The Summer
By Naomi L. Kirkman, M.S., Elementary Education
Learning doesn't have to stop when the school year ends! During your child's
summer vacation, you will have plenty of opportunities to strengthen reading,
writing and math skills in a fun, engaging way. Think of all the ordinary things
you do in the course of a day
.running errands, going to the grocery store,
cooking dinner. Summer is a perfect time to incorporate (i.e. "sneak") in
valuable learning time with your children during these daily routines!
READING
Opportunities to read are everywhere! First and foremost, you are the model.
When your kids see you reading books, magazines, and newspapers, you show them
that reading is valuable. Yet some children will not show an interest in reading
on their own. Here are some tips that can motivate your child to read this
summer!
Magazines like National Geographic Kids, Highlights, Sports Illustrated Kids
or Ranger Rick may interest your child. Get your child a subscription! Your
child will love getting something with his or her name on it in the mail.
Have catalogs of things your child is interested in available on your kitchen
table so that your child may browse through one while eating breakfast.
Read the directions to building a new toy together. Read the directions for
playing board or card games together too!
Does your child like sports or science? Read the sports pages or science
section of the newspaper together.
On car trips, leave the electronic games at home! Always have a variety of
books available in your car. While you are driving, encourage your child to ask
you some riddles or tell you some jokes from a riddle or joke book.
Play games in the car like counting the number of words you see that end in "ing"
or that have "sh" or "th" in them. Read road signs and advertisements.
Listen to books on tape in the car.
At the grocery store, have your child help you find the items you need.
Cook together and have your child read you the recipe ingredients.
Camp out in a tent in your backyard! Bring flashlights and books for an
evening of fun.
WRITING
Start each day off "WRITE!" Since writing and reading development are closely
linked, provide opportunities for your child to write on a daily basis.
Have a journal question on the kitchen table when your child wakes up each
morning, such as, "What do you want to do today?" Or have a shared journal by
your child's bed and each night, you can each write about your favorite part of
the day.
Write letters to relatives. If you go on a trip, have your child send a friend
a postcard!
Have your child write birthday cards, invitations, posters for a yard or
lemonade sale, a list of groceries, or take down messages from the answering
machine.
Encourage your child to keep a travel journal of places you visit.
MATH
To help build money management skills, involve your child in budgeting
decisions. Discuss how much money you can spend on a family outing. Estimate the
cost of the outing and work together to make a budget.
Ask your child to calculate the change you pull out of your pocket. In a
store, give your child a dollar bill (or $0.50 or $5.00 depending on your
child's age) and have him or her determine what can be bought with that amount
in a store. Help your child calculate change.
Play math games on long car trips. To enhance place value skills, look at
license plates and figure out how to scramble the numbers to make the largest
and smallest numbers. Your child can also add the numbers on a license plate
together, or multiply them.
Use real life situations to practice solving word problems. "We have to be at
Grandma's house at 5:00. It is 2:30 now. How much time do we have before we
leave?" Or, "Camp starts at 9:00. We live two miles from the field. It takes me
two minutes per mile to get there. What time should we leave to get there on
time?"
Play "I Spy" with a twist
pick an object and give clues that are geometrical
in nature, such as, "I spy something that is a sphere."
Use cooking as an opportunity to incorporate measurement and fraction skills
into your daily routine. Have your child measure the correct amounts of
ingredients and calculate fraction equivalents or determine which fractions are
greater or smaller. Encourage your child to figure out how to double or half the
recipe!
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