The summer is a time where kids are consumed by their desire to play with friends, enjoy being outside, and vacation. They forget about school and often times are not inclined to read a book in their free time, choosing to play games instead. This can cause kids to have no educational progress over the summer, and even cause them to regress in their learning growth and ability. Having 1-3 months off from keeping your mind active can halt development and progress for the school year.
Adults tend to try to avoid this by encouraging their kids to read or by reading books to their kids before they go to bed. While reading is effective, kids often times have the most trouble returning to school in the subject of math. It is very important for kids to keep up their math skills over the summer for them to develop this side of the brain and prepare themselves for the school year.
This can be as easy as incorporating math into your daily life with your kids, whether counting ingredients for your dinner, using fractions while shopping, or even giving your kids 10 easy addition, multiplication, subtraction and division problems a day. Soon, they will develop those skills and become so familiar with them that they will be excited for their 10 daily math problems. 3 websites for practicing math that your kids will benefit from and would be great to try are: sumdog.com, tenmarks.com, and adaptedminds.com.
It is also important that children continue to develop their writing skills over the summer. Give your kids journals and encourage them to keep a daily diary- simple notes about what they did that day. This way, they will be able to focus on their grammar and writing skills, as well as practice their handwriting. In the car, my family always played vocabulary or spelling games to see who got it write. My parents would say a word and we would have to spell it and say the meaning! It was fun and competitive while helping us practice.
Even taking your kids to an educational site- like a museum or historical park- will help. It is so valuable to keep your kids’ minds active during the summer and incorporating education into simple and fun activities will be the most beneficial!
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