I know with school nearing a close for many of you, you’re wondering what you’re going to do so your kiddos don’t forget all those precious tidbits you so carefully lodged in their brains over the course of the year. While I don’t plan anything super hard core for summer (we all need a break, me included!) I do keep the kids reading over the summer, mostly fun books. They get to pick what they want to read and as long as it’s appropriate for them, that’s fine.
Just to keep all of the other subjects fresh in their minds, we also do some activities out of the Carson Dellosa Summer Bridge activity books! They’re literally ZERO planning on my part, and great for keeping kids skills fresh over the summer.
Keeping up with your students reading, math, and other basic skills over the long summer break is important. I’m not sure if this happens to your kids, but it seems like a few weeks after school is out my kids seem to forget everything they’ve learned the previous year.
Depending on the day, I usually have the kids are do 1 lesson per day out of their workbook. I don’t usually force the issue too much, there tends to be a time each day where they start getting bored, and the Summer Bridge activities are the perfect solution! The great thing about them, is that they’re colorful and fun, so it’s not hard to get them to do a page or two.
Just to make it a little more fun, we use our Educational Insights Smens pens to make it a little bit more fun. They LOVE IT!
And I kid you not, one of them said “Wow, this is so much more fun than regular school!” and the other came up later in the day and actually asked me if she could do some school in her new workbook! Are you serious? YEAH!
Interested in some summer bridge activities?
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We actually start school slowly in July- like two days a week for an hour. And then bump it up a little more for August. This prevents the learning process from going backwards and also gives us some more freedom in our schedule thru out the year. If my boys have three months totally off, they never want to do school again. Believe me, I tried!
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We will continue with math lessons or fun review games. I let them pick fun books to read through the summer and I have them keep a Summer journal of all the activities we do. I am going to try and do more of the fun art projects with them this summer, we try to do them through out the year but it seems like the fun stuff gets put off when we get behind. I have declared this summer a fun school time for myself and my kids!
We practice a lot of what we have learned through out the school year on projects in the home such as cooking, sewing, gardening,etc. We continue to read daily and practice our music. We also write letters to distant family members and pen-pals and do something for our neighbors or church members who have lost mates or are sick.
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Great ideas!!! I love to read you blog. It has really helped me in my first year of homeschooling my son. I am so excited about next year and what great things we will get to do together. I am so glad that you blogged this because I was thinking about how to keep all that he had learned fresh in his mind so that he could transition easier to the next grade. Thank you for all the effort you put in to help other moms!!! 🙂
These books are great. They make the learning fun and keep the kids motivated.
Thanks!
I would love to win this for my daughter!
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This is my first year homeschooling so in the past we just read of summer break but this year I want to use the all about spelling program because my boys are behind. I also wanted something to keep them working but not take away there summer and tis looks perfect!! 🙂