It's finally here! Last day of school was today. Awards, photos, crying, all the junk out of the locker, and Mom getting pissed off...more about that later. And with all of this, comes the age old question asked by Moms every year at this time, "What are we going to DO with them for Three-Whole-Months?"!
Never fear SpoiledMom is here.
Just Remember the Mantra, Happiness isn't Material. If you are concerned about your school-aged child retaining those fresh math skills, history and science facts and whatever else they learned over the last 10 months, there are many ways to help kids of all ages maintain skills over the summer.
Remember summer is a time for "R&R" from the rigor of the classroom, so trying to replicate the classroom experience at home may result in resistance or burn-out on all things educational. I would prevent actual "study time" during summer. Maybe toward the end of summer, a preview of sorts, would be acceptable.
Don't Push Too Hard....
Instead of in your face approaches, look for opportunities for your teen to use critical thinking skills to solve real problems that are important to him. For example, let her apply math skills to doubling or modifying favorite recipes, such as homemade cinnamon rolls we make for breakfast; my oldest daughter has stared making pancakes, as well. Kids at this age are loving kitchen time. After a batch of fresh baked cookies, help your son or daughter research a political cause that interests him or her. Encourage your children to devise a more time-efficient method of completeting her least favorite chore, then test their new method against the old one.
Use your critical thinking skills to create interesting opportunities for learning that will foster higher level thinking in your teen. You might even discover an interesting topic or two for dinner conversation. Make it a point to sit down to dinner, every night, even during the summer. It provides family time as well as down time for your kids after a busy day of swimming, biking, or shooting hoops.
Get Unplugged....
Another idea to consider, and my family took part in this last year, is to downshift on the downloading. Summer is a great time to do this. Recent studies have revealed correlations between the hours of television viewed per day and attention difficulties in school and childhood obesity.
Given those findings, spending more time unplugged during the warm summer months sounds like a no-brainer to me. It wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be. I did implement a one hour rule. They had one hour each week, they could split it up in equal minutes per day, or have more minutes one day than another, but, they could not use the entire hour in one period at one time. This was another way of sneaking math in to figure out how many minutes they had per day and to figure out how many days they could get a better time deal.
Children of all ages develop and strengthen more brain connections through active and interactive play than most activities involving a flat screen; e.g. TV., video games, and computers.
Have Fun!
Do your family a favor and implement more play out-side time and moderate TV and computer time. You will all be better off for it!
Guest Boggers SpoiledChild1 and SpoiledChild2 will be guest blogging during the summer. They will be blogging on mp3s, wii games, clohes, ,movies, hot electronics, and a variety of different topics. Take the poll to see what you would like to see the girls blog about!
Thanks!
spoil yourself!
SpoiledMom
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