Learning tools you will use with your kids this summer to help them get ready for the next grade?

[Anonymous]

Hey DC Metro parents! I have will have a third & fifth grader this fall. What are some of your learning tools you will be using to help your kids with reading, writing and math?

[Anonymous]

We do Brain Quest activity workbooks. They have flashcards, too. By grade and by different topics, like math. I know people think this is evil, but my son loves them. We don't do them for more than 4-5 minutes a day, if that, and I don't press. But after I read that kids in the best public school systems forget about a month's worth of material over summer vacation, it changed my mind, and I wanted him to be somewhat engaged over the summer.

We also read a lot. I still read to him, and will do so through middle school if he'll sit still for it. He reads on his own as well. Again, not much. But on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

Last year, between K and 1st, we worked on reading and a phonics workbook almost everyday for about 15 - 20 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Rising 1st grader and preschooler. We will go to the pool. We will use sidewalk chalk. We will bake cookies. We will read books to each other. We will sing songs. We will dig for worms.

All of these are learning tools. Or did you mean drill-and-kill worksheets and/or edu-tainment electronics? We will not be doing any of those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rising 1st grader and preschooler. We will go to the pool. We will use sidewalk chalk. We will bake cookies. We will read books to each other. We will sing songs. We will dig for worms.

All of these are learning tools. Or did you mean drill-and-kill worksheets and/or edu-tainment electronics? We will not be doing any of those.

I highly recommend "The Good School," by Peg Tyre. All children lose skills during the summer. The average is one month's worth of learning. For math, it's 2.6 months of learning that is forgotten. And that's for middle class and higher, who come from families who have the time and opportunity to do things like dig for worms and read together. It's much worse for kids from lower SES households or those with other challenges.

Another point I found interesting was the history of a summer break over the years. I always thought it was due to kids' having to help out on rural family farms, and that is true to some extent. But some of it was so urban kids could get out of the city (Pre-AC days) to their summer homes. None of it is due to what best promotes learning and retention.

Reading with your kids is probably enough to retain literacy skills. But some "drill and kill" is likely necessary for math skills.

[Anonymous]

Brian Quest activity books and flash cards.
Handwriting with out tears.
Not on a daily basis or at a set time.
Reading lots of books from the library.
Other than that it's all about free play and outside time.

[Anonymous]

Rising 1st grader and preschooler. We will go to the pool. We will use sidewalk chalk. We will bake cookies. We will read books to each other. We will sing songs. We will dig for worms.

All of these are learning tools. Or did you mean drill-and-kill worksheets and/or edu-tainment electronics? We will not be doing any of those.

I highly recommend "The Good School," by Peg Tyre. All children lose skills during the summer. The average is one month's worth of learning. For math, it's 2.6 months of learning that is forgotten. And that's for middle class and higher, who come from families who have the time and opportunity to do things like dig for worms and read together. It's much worse for kids from lower SES households or those with other challenges.

Another point I found interesting was the history of a summer break over the years. I always thought it was due to kids' having to help out on rural family farms, and that is true to some extent. But some of it was so urban kids could get out of the city (Pre-AC days) to their summer homes. None of it is due to what best promotes learning and retention.

Reading with your kids is probably enough to retain literacy skills. But some "drill and kill" is likely necessary for math skills.

The pool is great for gross motor skills. We can also play around with math and science: physics, solid/liquid/gas, and basic addition, subtraction and multiplication based on a 25-meter pool. Buying snacks and getting change at the snack bar also reinforces math and money skills.

Sidewalk chalk is good for fine motor. We can read about sharks and draw a life-sized one, using the tape measure to talk about units of distance. Little guy can work on letter/number recognition while I play Hangman with the bigger one or help him figure out what 194,280,345,622 minus 187,884,203,117 is.

Cooking and baking are terrific activities to practice sequencing, fractions, and reading the recipes, plus social issues like sharing and turn-taking. We can make foods from different countries and talk about similarities/differences.

Digging for worms lets us talk about environmental science: the food chain, pollutants, diversity. We can measure our captives, graph them, read about them, draw pictures of them and even see whether they prefer the tomato plants to a pile of dead leaves.

I'm still not buying any of your workbooks.

[Anonymous]

I would say though by your post that you are still actively teaching them academics over the summer if you do as you've laid out. I agree in a better way than workbooks and in a way I wish the public schools would teach as well. My kids in fact probably won't even get as much academics as yours over the summer. They'll be focusing on other things such as swimming and tree climbing and if we have time to do a 10 minute academic lesson either in the moment in some practical way that comes up or with a workbook, we will but I have no set agenda other than perhaps for the last week of vacation. Both ways are fine in my opinion as long as they aren't overdone like they are during the school year.

[Anonymous]

My rising fifth grader never learned cursive, so I am going to teach him that. While I'm at it, his rising 2nd grade sister will be learning it too!

For math, the kids will be using the Singapore Math textbooks, 15 minutes each day. My rising 2nd grader will be practicing her addition facts as well. My older child will be working on spelling using abecedarian books -- level C

Oh yeah, they will also be swimming, bike riding, playing musical instruments, juicing fruit to make popsicles, gardening and no doubt watching their fair share of stupid TV.

[Anonymous]

Travel and museums

[Anonymous]

My school sends home summer packets that rival all of those work books. We do those.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for you wonderful responses. It's great listening to all of the different opinions. My kids will be enjoying the county day camp for 6 weeks. They will also spend lots of time at our community pool and also watching lots of stupid TV too, plus anything else that kids do to have fun and forget about school. My current second grader with the help of computer print outs taught herself cursive last summer, then when school started she taught some of the kids in her second grade class how to write their names in cursive.

My focus with my rising fifth grader will be reading, hopefully I will get him to read for at least 10 minutes a day. My rising 3rd grader. I will use a combination of worksheetsheets, computer and Nook games to work on advanced addition and subtration, multiplication and maybe division. Also try to get in some writing practice as well. She likes to read, so no problems there. I like the 15 minutes a day school work idea. Can't wait for this school year to end!

[Anonymous]

We are picking some themes and exploring them in-depth

Because I found a good source of guided curriculum, we are going to do the Romans and electricity. So about 4 hours a week will be dedicated to either exploring an experiment or reading up and making a poster or writing on a topic like roman architecture, words, myths, volcanoes and maybe government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The pool is great for gross motor skills. We can also play around with math and science: physics, solid/liquid/gas, and basic addition, subtraction and multiplication based on a 25-meter pool. Buying snacks and getting change at the snack bar also reinforces math and money skills. Yes, but the reality the vast majority of parents will not do anything but take their kid to the pool and then hang out with other parents or read their phone/ipad/book, etc. Snack bar - blindly had the kid money and ask for change, kid brings back change - doesn't even count it or look at it before heading off to eat snack with parents.

Sidewalk chalk is good for fine motor. We can read about sharks and draw a life-sized one, using the tape measure to talk about units of distance. Little guy can work on letter/number recognition while I play Hangman with the bigger one or help him figure out what 194,280,345,622 minus 187,884,203,117 is. Sidewalk chalk is fun but get real other that possibly playing hangman or tic-tac-toe there are not many other activities parents are going to actively engage in.

Cooking and baking are terrific activities to practice sequencing, fractions, and reading the recipes, plus social issues like sharing and turn-taking. We can make foods from different countries and talk about similarities/differences. Tacos and pizzas - that's great if your kid is into cooking - mine couldn't care less....

Digging for worms lets us talk about environmental science: the food chain, pollutants, diversity. We can measure our captives, graph them, read about them, draw pictures of them and even see whether they prefer the tomato plants to a pile of dead leaves. Being realistic again, your kids don't care about graphing them or reading about them. They want to figure out new ways to make them squirm. They also don't want to listen to some lecture on the food chain, etc.

I'm still not buying any of your workbooks.

[Anonymous]

"The pool is great for gross motor skills. We can also play around with math and science: physics, solid/liquid/gas, and basic addition, subtraction and multiplication based on a 25-meter pool. Buying snacks and getting change at the snack bar also reinforces math and money skills.

Sidewalk chalk is good for fine motor. We can read about sharks and draw a life-sized one, using the tape measure to talk about units of distance. Little guy can work on letter/number recognition while I play Hangman with the bigger one or help him figure out what 194,280,345,622 minus 187,884,203,117 is.

Cooking and baking are terrific activities to practice sequencing, fractions, and reading the recipes, plus social issues like sharing and turn-taking. We can make foods from different countries and talk about similarities/differences.

Digging for worms lets us talk about environmental science: the food chain, pollutants, diversity. We can measure our captives, graph them, read about them, draw pictures of them and even see whether they prefer the tomato plants to a pile of dead leaves.

I'm still not buying any of your workbooks."

You're an awesome parent.