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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Our daughter takes classes at the rec center in the summer and we go on lots of “field trips”. We homeschool year round and look for learning opportunities in everything we do.
We do lots of reading, the library’s reading program and go to fun places where they learn too like the zoo and children’s museum.
I love to continue (less formal) school over the summer! I find that just bringing all the ABC’s and 123’s outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather and nature really helps my children’s learning. We also love visiting the library, practicing handwriting in the sand at the beach, and doing “science” through nature walks and outdoor discovery!
We always join our libraries summer reading program and usually do some math worksheets to say fresh.
Thank you!
Michelle
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I am just getting started in homeschooling my three children. We have always read over the summer and little work sheets here and there to keep the “important” things fresh.
Previous summers I got the Summer Bridge books for my younglings. This was our first year homeschooling so I felt bad having them do the Summer Bridge books since I was the one to “make” them do school all year. But the books were colorful and had fun activities so maybe it wouldn’t feel like school to them. Maybe I could have Daddy get them…. 🙂
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I will continue making trips to the library to keep up reading. Also, my son is very inquisitive, so the topics he is asking about is the topics I will spontaneously focus on (with books and simple demos).