Here at VolunteerSpot, we’re committed to simplifying the busy lives of parents, teachers and active volunteers. Along that theme, we’re pleased to support your personal efforts in getting organized and gaining quality time and present guest organization expert April Welch, The Mental Clutter Coach! Each Thursday through Labor Day, April will share helpful tips and tricks to help us all de-clutter our lives. Today, April takes on Summer Learning -- thanks, April!
* * *
Fun Websites that Prevent Summer Brain Drain
By April Welch
Driving The Teenager to school this morning I couldn't help but notice how empty the high school parking lot was and in the back of my mind I could hear The Pipsqueak's voice "only 2 1/2 days left of school Mom!"
This brings such a mixed reaction for most of us out there.
On the one hand ~ Whoo-Hoo! Vacation time!
On the other hand ~ how am I going to keep summer slacker habits from becoming the norm?
By now, we're all so exhausted from 'end of the year' events that coming home & flopping down sounds pretty enticing. And honestly? I encourage you do to so! {yes, you read that right. The Organizer just told you to be lazy!}
Once you've given your mind and body a good rest ~ then what?
For most of my clients, they like the idea of having a "family meeting" and discussing what they want from their summer. In my own family, I start with the following question:
"In the fall, how would you like to answer the infamous question:'What did you do this summer?'"
The discussion quickly gets going...
"a family road trip"
"go fishing"
"build a neighborhood fort"
"have a movie marathon"
"learn to cook a favorite meal"
"go camping"
{yes, these are all real answers from my kiddos}
As the ideas fly, the record keeper, takes notes. Once we've all voiced our thoughts we pull out the calendar & take a look at schedules. Dad's work, Mom's travel, any camp dates and then we start filling in the various adventures we intend to have. My only request is that we have at least one day home a week as a family for "off the radar" time.
Once all that is in place I move into the academic expectations. {surprisingly, no moaning & groaning here!} I'm aware of all those scary statistics out there about how the mind turns to mush in the matter of weeks when skills are unused! {often called Summer Slide or Summer Brain Drain} So, in preparation, I seek out ways to keep it fun.
Last summer we took a road trip as a family for 4 days. I had everyone choose a landmark they'd like to visit in our state and we planned our route accordingly. The morning we were set to leave I shared with everyone {including Dad} that I had pre-paid for our hotel stay however, the remainder of our budget was in "the envelope". As I pulled out of the driveway Dad opened "the envelope" to disclose $300 cash. {yes, a shocked look followed}
During our trip the kids had a bit of a wake up call while doing the math after we paid to fill the car up with gas. The Pipsqueak quickly became the Penny Pincher in the car. {He's usually my "I want ..." child}. They read the map & kept us on course. They took pictures of interesting sites and later told other family members about the historical items they saw. And all along they never realized I was sneaking in education!
This summer I'm taking a little more techno approach. I've found a few sites that I think will help me in my quest:
TenMarks - I gotta say, I can't wait to dive into this site with the Pipsqueak! Based on your state's standards as well as your child's grade level {both exiting & entering} these guys create a personalized math curriculum! Best part? You create a reward system for them ~ hello motivation! I think the Pipsqueak will earn an iTunes song for every week he completes this summer {and maybe a trip to his favorite restaurant at the midway point! Yum yum!}
Reading:
Getting Boys to Read - This is an amazing site for all of us out there trying to help our non-reading boys get their necessary skills in {love their "out of the box" thinking}
Ann K. Dolin, M.Ed., literacy expert and the president and director of Educational Connections, Inc., an in-home tutoring company in the D.C. area, recommends these other terrific summer reading sites:
Headsprout - Early reading and reading comprehension (ages 4-10)
Study Dog - Interactive reading program in video game format. Pre-K to 2nd grade
Scholastic - Summer Reading Challenge for students K-8; Click on Student Activities for writing.
If you have a reluctant reader, use Books on Tape. Have your child read along to the author’s narration of the book.
Weebly - This is a site I use for our family website. Their template based site makes it easy to "drag & drop" elements and get a blog going ~ all for FREE! This is how I sneak in writing skills ~ the kids each have to write something about their adventures on the site.
I'd love to know what your plans are for keeping slacker habits at bay & avoiding that "summer slide" this year {let me know if you've found any good links I might of missed}. Be sure to leave comments so we can all learn!
Keepin' life tidy all summer long,
April
***
April Welch is the founder of Simply Organized Online, LLC and shares her organizational expertise on her blog, The Mental Clutter Coach. In addition to her company, she speaks at conferences nationwide and gives helpful advice on how to effectively organize anything and everything.
* * *
At VolunteerSpot, we thought TenMarks was such a good idea that we enrolled in their affiliate program! If you’re interested in preventing the ‘summer slide’ and keeping your kid’s math skills up to grade level, please click the link below to learn more. A percentage of your purchase helps support VolunteerSpot.
{NOTE: All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer. (White, 1906; Heyns, 1978; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Cooper, 1996; Downey et al, 2004). Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months. Low-income students also lose more than two months in reading achievement, despite the fact that their middle-class peers make slight gains (Cooper, 1996).}
