Keep Thinking all Summer #100DaystoLearn

They are stretching out ahead of us. Those long, sunny, hot days of summer filled with sunscreen, sweet tea and kids whining “I’m bored” when they bother to look up from their digital screens.  What’s a parent to do?

One thing is to keep them learning all summer. We know it intuitively and research proves that during those lazy days of doing nothing, kids forget some of what they learned all year long. They come back not remembering how to write a cursive J or solve a + 3 = 9 or who fought in the Civil War. It’s called the “summer slide” but its not fun. Research shows that kids can lose up to 2-3 months of learning while out of school, the effect is stronger in lower-income children who may not experience some type of active learning from June through September.  Keeping kids busy and thinking all summer long can help reduce, or even eliminate, those effects. And, yes, there is some pushing and prodding and reminding that may be required, but it doesn’t take a lot of work for parents to keep their kids firing those brain cells around math and reading.

To help parents along, I’ve launched #100DaystoLearn.  Wearing my other hat, as a Family Ambassador Fellow, with an eye to encouraging more family engagement in education, I’ll be tweeting a tip or activity each day, June through September for parents to support their children’s learning, pre-K through high school.  Follow me on Twitter at @FFEngageFamily for your daily tip (and of course, I’ll retweet as @JustPiddlinBlog too).

Day 1, June 1, kicked off with starting a summer journal. Whether a $1 Store notebook or a leatherbound journal – or even that composition book that you sent to school way back in September and your kid only wrote on 10 pages #recycle #reuse!  Start a journal, decorate the cover or first page. Write in it through the summer – what you all did, what you read, random lists, stories, poems, math work.  Some of the tips I post will also return you to the journal. The kids practice their handwriting (slowly becoming a lost skill) and writing skills.  Have fun with it. Post pictures of your journal - #100DaystoLearn.

Day 2’s reminder – go to one of my favorite places – the public library! Find your card, renew your card, get a new card and get a schedule of summer activities and services at your library card. You’d be surprised at what your local library offers for free.

Follow along. Let me know how it’s going! Happy summer!

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Make Your Own College Tour

On our summer to-do list was “find the turtles and dairy at College Park.”  It sounds like some environmental adventure, but it’s not.  My kids, specifically my oldest daughter, Elle, had decided that they wanted to go on their own scavenger hunt across the UM College Park campus, in search of the Terrapin (“Terp”) painted statues across the campus and get a scoop of ice cream.  You’ve seen these painted statues, often a public works/arts/public fundraising project in various cities – an animal decorated in all kinds of themes and scattered through the streets.  Wandering through DC, you may spot a multi-color panda, donkey, or elephant on the street.

The flagship campus has their school mascot, a terrapin, painted and waving at passers-by around the university.  We had no map and the kids basically relied on their memory of where they thought they had seen them on previous trips to campus (basketball games, school trips, and alum activities with my husband, the proud Terp) and where it seemed reasonable (to my kids) that they should be.  We wandered fromm the Comcast Center to the main library, looking for these decorated turtles.

 

My favorite terp was the Kermit the Frog, in honor of UM alum, Jim Henson

Maryland also makes it’s own ice cream in the creamery operated by the College of Agriculture.  Somehow, we’ve missed getting a scoop on other visits, except Breeze who had some during a summer camp.  The Dairy's ice cream was really good – just sweet enough, full of mix-in ingredients – you know, the s’mores ice cream had lots of chocolate, graham, and marshmallow; the birthday cake flavor had good chunks of cake with frosting blended in.  I had “Fear the Turtle” – vanilla ice cream with white chocolate, pecans, caramel, crème de cacao, and triple sec.  We each had one scoop, which I have to say, was more than the normal commercial scoop – and about half the price.  A pretty good deal.

While in the student union, we came upon a small art installation which attracted the kids with its headphones hanging below video screens.  The exhibit was "Juke" by the artist Jefferson Pinder, a series of videos of African-American persons lip-syncing to a song not typically sang by an African-American person.  According to the accompanying placard, the exhibit "questions the perceived racial categories in music and asks...'is there black music?'"  One art exhibit, the kids can handle that.

We generally wait until kids are ready to fill out college applications before taking them on a college tour, but these mini-towns can be a fun place to wander around even when the kids are younger.  Of course, we first think of the sports teams and their games, but also consider all the majors and their related buildings and exhibits – music performances, art exhibits, farms, libraries, chapels, and athletic facilities.  And if there’s an agriculture college – ice cream or other agriculture products. My alma mater, UDelaware sells Blue Hen wool yarn, shorn from the sheep on the farm.  Many of these buildings and exhibits are open to the public and offer affordable options for a family outing.  And shhh… don’t let the kids in on this part – they might even learn something along the way.

So for your next close to home day out, check out your local university.

UPDATE:
After our road trip vacation, summer 2014, I am adding the MIT Museum and Harvard Square to the list of great college visits.  If your family enjoys science museums - MIT has to be on your list if you're ever in Boston.

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Let Summer Be for Kid Stuff

Summer break, for us, is a little less than 3 weeks away. (There's some funky school days math with final exams, promotion ceremonies, class parties, etc. that confuse the count, especially for a mom with 4 kids in 3 different schools, but anyway...)  I know some of you lucky folks are already sleeping in and eating cereal in front the TV.  Or could be. But for many kids and families, summer will be just as hectic with summer activities - camp, tutoring, sports - as it is during the school year.

I'm truly the slacker mom when it comes to summer activity signup. I've filled out no registration forms yet. None. Zero. I did take my daughter to summer basketball tryouts last week.  And I'll get around to signing the kids up for summer swim team this week because practice starts, well, tomorrow.  And that's about all I have on the radar right now.

It's not that I don't think kids need stuff to do over the summer. I just don't want to have an active role in all that they do in the summer.  Yes, this is the season when I start to lament about how much time they spend in the house, on video games and texting their friends, rather than playing kickball in the street and building forts and hanging out with friends at the neighborhood pool.  I will complain a million times about having to take them somewhere rather than them hopping on their bikes and wandering off.  Selfishly, I admit, I'd like a break from chaffering and scheduling.

I also want to give them a break from the hard thinking.  No doubt, I will encourage, suggest, require that they keep up with some academics over these sunny months with math workbooks and a reading log and frequent library visits. But I will not require them to do the academic camps and the "what you want to be when you grow up" camps unless they really really want to. I have seen so many ads for camps for leadership, scientific research, writing a first novel, engineering, computer programming, career exploration, music production, math advancement - all to give your kid "an edge" or prepare them for their career. (And yes, my daughter did go to an engineering camp last summer, so I've fallen into the lure of making her a girl-genius, too.)  I'd love for them to spend part of their days drawing on the sidewalk with chalk or coloring a picture or building a cardboard go-cart.  We put so much emphasis on career planning for the 6-year old, we barely give the kids time to enjoy being a kid and all the fun stuff that goes along with that finite period of life.  I don't imagine it's documented anywhere, but I'm sure the lessons learned from negotiating who's "it," playing by the rules, and finding your way around the neighborhood will come in handy as an adult.

So here's to the other parents who haven't signed up for summer camp yet - academic, sports, or otherwise - and are feeling guilty. At least you're not alone. Maybe our kids can play together.

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Get your Kids to Turn the Page

Kids don’t like to read? 

Yeah, I’ve got one in my bunch, too.  But you can't just let kids not read, ever, because they don't like it, right?  Here's a few ideas to give them a little motivation to get through summer reading assignments.    Or if, they didn't get any from school, how to get through a few books during vacation on their own.

Photo taken by my little readers - their first few books for the summer.

• Get them their own library card.  Something about having their own card and checking out their own books, makes my kids excited about going to the library.  This is more exciting to the younger ones, but the older ones do take more ownership for their books when they are on their own card.
• Sign up for a public summer reading challenge. Our public library offers one every summer; this year, the kids got a free ticket to a local baseball game for signing up and win a prize for meeting their reading goal.  I also noticed Barnes & Noble will give kids a free book at the end of the summer if they have read a designated number of books and turn in a certificate.
• Set a special reading time, 20-30 minutes a day.
• Remind the kids that they can fulfill their reading requirements during times they would be doing nothing anyway - riding to camp, dropping off a sibling at camp, waiting at a swim meet, lounging around at grandma's, during adult swim at the pool.
• Have family read-alouds.  Something like "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" and "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick is a fun option for children of varied ages - there's pages of text as well as full-page beautiful pencil drawings. 
• Read plays and let the kids act them out.
• Make your own reading challenge, maybe a certain number of pages or books or minutes.  My kids have set 1000 minutes as a goal. And you could be sneaky and throw in some math skills (adding, dividing, charting) to keep track.
• Have your own family bookclub or parent/child bookclub with other friends.  I know a few friends who are in Mother/daughter bookclubs and it sounds like a fun idea. I think I'll try it before my girls are too old to want me hanging around with them (we're really close to that point, I think).
• Get them to write their own stories.  Encourage them to find books they like, then write something similar - in the same setting or with the same characters, an extension of the story, or a new ending.
• Set an example - let your kids see you reading and enjoying books.

Happy reading!

Summer Academics

Parents, you've heard it a million times - keep the kids working and learning over the summer.  Don't let their brains become so filled with lemonade that they have forgotten how to conjugate a verb or add an equation by the time the get back to school.  They have their summer packets from school, but I've learned from past summers that for the little ones, they can get these done in a concentrated effort of 2, maybe 3 days.  What about the other 70-some days?

Math. You remember math - geometry, algebra, trig. Or more to the point, maybe you don't.  And until the kids know 7x8 as well as they know their favorite ice cream flavor, they need to keep practicing.  What math skills are studied over the summer, obviously, depend on the level of math your child is in at school. Perhaps, they had a tough year and they need to reinforce what they learned in order to be ready for the next level.  Or, they may have had a good math year and are confident in their arithmetic skills.  I supply my kids with a stack of math workbooks for the summer, trying to span a little reinforcement from the previous year and a challenge of looking forward to next year's math.  This year, I've got Singapore Math for the word problems and Kumon for the basic skills (ex. how to multiply fractions).

Math work for every grade

Our schools are going with the Common Core Standards curriculum; I noticed at the bookstore some books are stamped with a "Common Core aligned" emblem. I didn't check all the details, but from my understanding of this new curriculum, the main point is to push the kids to think in a wider range than "15 + 10 = ?" and develop a greater range of thinking and problem solving skills.  Thus, I have a word problem set for each of the kids - 3rd grade, 5th grade, and Algebra-based.

Reading.  We put our library cards into overdrive for the summer.  I encourage them to read a book a week - a mere 8 books over the summer!  Elle also has required reading for 9th grade, with related written work, so that of course is her priority, but she's the reader and will get a bunch of leisure reading done, too.  Our library has a book challenge, when the kids have read a certain number of books, they get a prize. Barnes & Noble offers one, too.

Make up your own house reading challenge - number of books for the younger set, number of pages for the older folks.  I'm not big on elaborate prizes, but do consider one, I mean, what's a challenge without a prize. Perhaps a book gift card, getting to pick out cupcakes when the challenge is met, or an outing to somewhere fun.

Check my post specifically on reading for more tips on getting thru the summer books.

Learning cursive is on the summer agenda

 Writing. What the kids write isn't as important to me as the fact that they do. Grab one of those notebooks from the school year (if like my kids, most are half-full) and have them write each day during the summer break.  Just one page. Whatever they want. They'll get practice in thinking, writing, spelling in a non-pressure environment.  And they'll get handwriting practice which leads me to the next item.

Cursive.  Perhaps its the new curriculum, but my little ones don't get cursive in school.  J is going into 5th grade and only writes in print. I know the arguments: "no room in the curriculum," "everybody types anyway," "at least they can print."  Yeah, heard it all. But what happens when they are given something in cursive and then have to say, "I can't read this"?  What happens when they have to actually sign their name on something?  What happens when they become grown people and want to write in something other than their elementary print?  Cursive writing is on the list for the summer.  (BTW - I printed letter guides from www.handwritingforkids.com.)

All this, and yes, we will still manage to get to the pool and basketball games and tennis practice and the  zoo and the park and make ice cream and cook dinner and have a picnic and lounge around and do nothing.  It is summer, after all.