As the school year draws to a close and your child looks forward to the summer months, it's a good time to start thinking about ways to keep him or her learning during the summer while engaging in exciting activities.
According to the National Summer Learning Association, students who do not participate in any summer enrichment or educational programs lose around 22% of what they learned throughout the school year. Teachers frequently revisit previous content throughout the first two months of school.
As a parent, you want to ensure that your child maintains their hard-won knowledge over the summer without sacrificing their enjoyment. Fortunately, there are a variety of activities that are both entertaining and educational. These activities allow you to enjoy the lazy summer days while simultaneously keeping your child's mind occupied.
Everyday, set aside time to read.
Summer vacation can cause language abilities to deteriorate, but you don't have to pressure your child to do book reports or spelling tests. Instead, set aside about half an hour every day for reading. Allowing your child to choose what they want to read is the greatest option for summer learning. You don't want to make daily reading time difficult, it may result in your child to stop reading, by encouraging them to choose anything at a challenging reading level.
Family read-aloud sessions can be used to enhance your child's reading time. This allows you to expose your child to a variety of stories, including ones that are above their reading level.
Attend educational excursions.
Learning does not have to take place only at home! Take instructive field trips to places like the local history, science, or art museum. Allow your child to explore a topic of interest while learning something new. Even holidays and trips can foster learning; ask your youngster to do some study on the location you'll be visiting and the history of the area.
Include Math in Everyday Activities
Math, like reading, is another subject where summer learning loss can occur. While it may appear like worksheets are a good solution to address this problem, most students loathe doing practice problems during their free time.
Estimate the cost of groceries in the basket using mental math.
Play board games that include recognizing shapes, counting, or money.
Over the summer, talk about how sports statistics are calculated and keep track of a favorite team or player.
Plant a garden
Growing their own fruits and vegetables allows children to learn more about their surroundings. Is there no space in your yard? Together, create a patio or container garden. Your kid can document the life cycle of the plant, as well as any problems she encounters and how she works to resolve them, in a daily gardening notebook.
Online Learning
Invest in online learning sites that provide both reading materials and comprehension activities to challenge your young learner’s mind.
Cook Meals Together
Cooking combines multiple courses from school: reading comprehension, science, arithmetic, and problem-solving. Cooking is also an important life skill that everyone should master. Summer vacation is an excellent opportunity to get your youngster involved in food planning and preparation. Cooking together can sometimes persuade fussy children to try new foods.
Start Important Conversations
Purposeful interactions with your child can deepen your bond with them while also assisting them in maintaining important language skills. When you talk about issues that interest your child, you provide them the opportunity to practice their storytelling, explanatory, persuasive, and comparison speaking skills.
You can talk about numerous topics with your child, and discussions can become more in-depth as your child grows older. Ask younger children about their favorite activities:
Their most recent Minecraft experience
Is it fun developing games in Roblox?
You can talk about movie adaptations of favorite novels, debate political or social "hot subjects," or delve into a historical event or period with older kids.
Summer Online Tutoring
Summer online tutoring is a fantastic way to dig right into the things that your child is passionate about. It's an excellent way to learn something new, broaden your knowledge in a field of interest, and gain confidence.
Consider what you could do if you had a specific amount of time to spend researching any educational topic you wanted. What fresh information would you gain? What impact would this have on your personal development? Is it possible for you to change careers?
