Think “Horizontally” this Summer

As the school year winds down (the most atypical school year ever!), I recently had a mother ask me about enriching her son over the summer.  She particularly wanted to know how to find next year’s curriculum so that she can get him started on that.  I directed her to the standards in the SC Dept of Education webpage (https://ed.sc.gov/instruction/standards-learning/).  But after further discussion, I discovered that she wanted to enrich over the summer because her son gets bored easily.  He is very bright and learns quickly.  At that point, I encouraged her to re-think her plan for the summer.  Instead of enriching “vertically” (i.e., starting next year’s curriculum), I wanted her to think “horizontally”.   So, with this in mind, here is a comprehensive, but by no means exhaustive, list of learning activities for the summer for kids of all ages.

 

• Teach your child how to cook a few meals that he now takes over and can cook throughout the year.  You can build some math into the activity by “doubling” or “halving” the recipe.

 

• Bake some sweet treats and share with neighbors.  Again, learning fractions!

 

• At home, cultivate a joy of learning and joy of reading—you are the most important influence and role model for your children in this way!  Encourage your children to choose reading as an activity when you have free time—turn off the TV and the video games.  You must do the same for this to be effective.  Have them write a response to their reading—book report, use two new words in sentences, summarize the story (who, what, when, where, why of the book), would they recommend the book to others and why?  They can keep a reading journal.

 

• If you are going on a vacation to visit family in Florida over the summer, go to the library and get a travel book on Florida, read about its history, study the map with them and read about cities you will pass on the way, get a book on Florida animals, etc.  Plan an itinerary together.

 

• With the current economic situation and many people’s finances significantly affected, it is a perfect time to discuss money (age appropriately, not to invoke any anxiety) and budgeting skills.  This can easily transfer into meal planning and grocery shopping and using a budget for older children.  Teach them to buy groceries and plan meals based on weekly sales and sticking to a budget.  One of our tutors has her children take turns making a family meal with a budget of $20.  What a life skill!

 

• Another fun activity could be to build a small bookshelf or bench for his room.  There are plenty of DIY and YouTube videos out there to pick a reasonable construction project.  This would be a great activity to practice measuring and then have the satisfaction of a final product to be proud of that is also useful. 

 

• Now that the beaches are opening, you can add a biology beach walk – collect 10 things you find (shells, seaweed, etc) and then research what they are, their scientific names,  identify their features and habitat.   Also, the ocean theme can work to springboard into the Percy Jackson book series or some pre-Odyssey (usually 9th grade) Greek mythology research.

 

• Of course, our Charleston area is rich in history and family field trips to these sites provide a walk through time and include a social studies lesson. 

 

• Help your teen look into volunteer opportunities at the animal shelter or library. They can learn as they help others.  Community service hours also look great on a resume and college application.

 

• Students can practice letter writing skills. Write notes to relatives or friends.  Letter-writing seems to be a slowly fading tradition in our society but can be great practice and brings families and friends together in a different non-technology way.  Maybe your student can find a penpal to correspond with or write a letter to an author of a book they have read.  Many authors will also send notes to students as a response to a letter.  Of course, writing daily in a diary is also a good way to keep up skills and to recall summer activities, especially the Summer of 2020, which will arguably be like no-other and would be an interesting keepsake for remembering the Summer of the Quarantine that they can share with their children some day.

 

• Younger children can collect all kinds of things–shells, flowers, leaves, rocks–and practice sorting by different criteria (size, color, shape).  They can then re-sort by a different criteria, or sort by two criteria (e.g., sort by “size AND color” so the child would have a pile of small blue items and a different pile of large blue items).  These items can be graphed to practice graphing skills.  They can even be used for grouping to practice skip counting.  

 

• Your family can read books together that have been made into movies.  We always recommend reading the book first and then using the movie as the reward.  Then you can have great discussion comparing and contrasting, likes and dislikes etc.  When traveling in the car, have the family listen to an audiobook instead of watching movies, electronics etc.

 

• Choose a “word of the day” that you discuss, practice using in a sentence, and then write on a whiteboard for you to see and try to use during the week. At the end of the week, have a challenge to see if anyone can use all six words in a sentence.

 

• Older children can learn about investing and choose stocks to follow and “buy”.  They can monitor their fluctuations and recalculate their value for math practice.  Younger children can learn about money with an allowance and learn to save (50 percent), give (10 percent), and spend wisely (40 percent). 

 

• Gardening is another great summer activity.  You can start a few plants from seeds and vary their conditions (amount of light, water, and fertilizer) to create an experiment, measure outcomes, collect data, and create graphs or tables.  Growing and taking care of vegetables again is a great life skill, develops responsibility, and can be helpful during this economy. 

 

We hope the Summer of 2020 ends up being one of the most memorable for your family and that you stay safe and healthy.  Education and Testing Solutions will be open all summer for both in-person (that is the current plan) and online tutoring (for those with concerns or who live a distance away).  You can always contact us for a consultation to help plan some meaningful, fun learning experiences for your children.  Happy Summer!