After nine months of homework, math facts and reading logs, summer break is a welcome reprieve from the grueling process of learning. The prefect summer is one in which bedtimes are later, rules are slackened and kids get to do things they want to do, not something an adult wants them to do, right?
Sort of.
Summer learning loss is a well-documented phenomena, and as a long time teacher I assure you, the summer slide is real. It takes kids several weeks, sometimes months, to return to the level of academic understanding and focus they had just months prior at the end of the previous year. A significant amount of instructional time each school year is lost due to the need for extensive review and catch-up, thanks to the summer slide.
If your child is like mine, those school summer reading lists were tossed out with the months-old vocabulary tests and stinky gym shorts the minute the last bell rang.
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To fight summer learning loss, schools offer a multitude of summer reading lists, fliers for library reading programs, summer math reviews and various other “enrichment ideas,” to keep those neurons firing over the break. But if you child is like mine, those items were tossed out with the months old vocabulary tests and stinky gym shorts the minute the last bell rang. And if you’re like me, you were so relieved to make it to the end of school that the thought of battling through a summer of enrichment is enough to bring on a nervous tic.
Though I may be a teacher who deals with the aftermath of summer learning loss in the fall, as a mother of two boys, I certainly understand that battling the summer slide is not as easy as the educational world wants you to believe. After taking a week to catch our breath, I came up with some ideas to keep the learning going in a way that wouldn’t drive any of us crazy. Here’s our list of boy-centric ways to fight the summer slide while keeping us all happy.
1. Let’s Make a Deal –
If left to choose, my oldest son could lose his entire day on the internet. From gaming to watching videos of people gaming, he gets sucked into it all. The constant battle of limiting screen time was a nightmare so I developed the “Let’s Make a Deal” approach to screen time. We have three cards and on the back of each is one of three options: Card one is 30 for 30 which means read for 30 minutes, get 30 minutes of screen time. Card number two is 30 for 45 which gives him 45 minutes of video game madness for every 30 minutes of reading or card number three which is double or nothing, meaning whatever amount of time he choses to read he gets double that in screen time. It’s the big money card. Each day we shuffle the cards and he chooses his deal.
2. Get STEAMed.
My boys, like many, love to build and there are a plethora of great ideas flooding the Internet if you know where to look. Amazing STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) teachers share their lessons on sites like Pinterest, and a simple search will reveal many more. Plus, most are free for the taking. So far this summer we’ve built numerous catapults utilizing everything from pencils to popsicle sticks, tested various paper parachutes on action figures, made lifejackets for little green army men, and built electrical circuits.
3. Grow Your Dinner.
I’ve planted gardens with my oldest for several years, and this year my youngest is finally old enough to get in on the action. Gardening is a great way for kids to dig in the dirt while learning about the life cycle of plants and how food gets from seed to table. This year we’ve added growth calculations and began experimenting with new breeds of vegetables as well.
4. Get into Physics While Getting Physical.
A handful of toy cars, a few balls and a trip to the playground is a great way to burn off some energy and explore the ideas of force and motion as well as kinetic and potential energy. If it’s been a few years since you’ve had physics class, check out physics4kids.com for a refresher course or the Marvin and Milo comic on http://www.physics.org for some simple experiments.
5. Decode Something New to All of You.
Starting out on an equal learning level with your son is not something most parents experience frequently, but you should. Last summer our family began learning ASL, a language totally new to all of us. Though that was inspired by need (our youngest son is deaf), the feeling of camaraderie it brought and the fun we had stumbling though learning together inspired us to try again this summer. This summer we’re learning to code with Scratch. The day we got our computer cat to do the cha-cha will go down in family history as a great victory. Build you own cha-cha kitty here – https://scratch.mit.edu
6. Get Out and Go.
Visits to zoos, science centers, and aquariums are great ways to keep the learning going regardless of age. Kids love to share what they’ve learned and these places provide the perfect opportunities. The same is true for hikes and visits to sculpture gardens. Even a surly adolescent will be swayed into playing with a wind-tunnel exhibit at a science center. If you start the inquiry, they will follow. We never get too old to ask “How does that work?”
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Just like no boy wants to spend his summer memorizing multiplication tables, no parent wants to spend the summer nagging and arguing with their sons either. With a little dose of fun and some backdoor learning, you can fight the summer slide and they won’t even notice. Learning while having fun is what it’s all about.
Margaret Ozemet is a middle school teacher, writer, wife and mom to two crazy boys. Her work has appeared on numerous online sites, literary journals, and anthologies, including New Letters, Hippocampus, Red Fez Magazine, Ducts.org, and Scary Mommy, to name a few. She blogs about life with a special needs toddler, a sports loving older son, and her Turkish husband on her weekly humor blog, Laughter is Better Than Prozac –https://laughterisbetterthanprozac.wordpress.com.
Photo: Flickr/Aitor Escauriaza