Active Learning for Summer

With summer sailing by, the last thing that kids want to be doing is schoolwork. Parents and others who care for them know, however, that academic inactivity for three solid months can lead to all sorts of problems getting back into the school routine come September. Sitting down to flashcards and book reports may be out of the question, but you don’t have to let your children’s brains stagnate for these next few weeks, either. Try some of these tricks to put a summer spin on learning!

For The Youngest Learners

Toddlers and preschoolers and even the soon-to-be-kindergarteners are busy learning all the time. Help these young students get off on the right foot when they head to class in the fall by building their language skills. In order to be ready for school lessons on letter sounds, alphabet and reading, children need to develop strong skills with words well before school. Here are some games to try with the youngest learners:

Finish the Story

Start a fanciful tale and let your child take over for the big finish! You can make these up yourself, or hit the library for some new and unfamiliar stories. Read the first few pages, then challenge your child to tell at least one or two more things that might happen in the story. See if he or she can come up with a solution to the characters’ problems or a conclusion to the story that makes sense.

Make Lists

Next time you’re riding in the car together or when you have some unexpected waiting time, try making lists. You can list nearly anything: desserts, furniture, animals, colors, or actions. The lists also can be based on letters or sounds, such as a list of words that start with the B sound or that have D on the end. Try rhymes, too, because early reading lessons will focus on mastering words with similar endings like hat, pat, cat and rat. Listing games will help your child build vocabulary and categorization skills.

Play Memory Games

Dig out the old favorites from your childhood to boost those memory skills. Use a regular deck of playing cards to play Concentration by turning all the cards face down and taking turns looking at two at a time. When you find a color/number match (like the four of hearts and the four of diamonds), remove the cards from play. Count the cards in each player’s possession at the end of the game to determine a winner if you wish. Don’t forget the oral memory games, too, like “I’m Going on a Picnic and I’m Going to Take…” Each player takes a turn repeating all the items in the picnic basket and adding a new one to the end of the list. See how many things everyone can remember before getting hopelessly mixed up. You can add items at random or in alphabetical order to make things a bit easier.

FOR YOUNG ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

Try a Reading Scavenger Hunt

Send your novice reader off to find familiar words and phrases around your house in this active game. You can make a list of things to find, such as size words, number words, or color words, or you can arm your players with paper and pencil to copy down any words they see that they already know how to read. Besides looking in traditional printed materials, give them hints to check clothing tags, food labels, and instruction booklets.

Play Word Scramble

Make reading word flashcards that your child needs to practice. These can be lists from school or simply important words that are common in children’s stories, like “said” or “always.” Scatter the cards around a large play area and then call out words for the children to find. Make the game even more challenging by playing outdoors and putting some words in hard-to-reach places like the top of the slide, under a rock, or on a jungle gym.

Play Math Fact War

Use a regular deck of playing cards and remove the face cards. Use the aces through the tens. Shuffle the cards and deal them evenly to two players. Each turns two cards face up from the top of their piles and adds or multiplies the two numbers. The highest total wins the round and keeps all the cards in play. If the totals are the same, each player deals out two cards face down and then turns over two more cards to multiply or add together. The player with the highest total takes all of the cards. Whoever has the entire deck at the end of the game wins.

Declare “Five-Sentence Days”

Challenge your student to write down five sentences about what has happened during the day. Once the sentences are written, see if your author can add at least one more word to each sentence to make it more vivid and clear.

FOR OLDER ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

Go for a Measurement Scavenger Hunt

Arm the players with rulers and a list of sizes (like two inches or thirty centimeters) and challenge everyone to find one object that has that measurement within the time limit. See who can find the most items from the list.

Try Munchable Math

Use a bag of colored candies to review math concepts such as fractions, addition, subtraction, percentage and ratio. Sort the candies into color groups and calculate the fraction of red candies in the package (number of red candies on top and total number of candies on the bottom) or total the number of candies of two or three different colors. Find out how many blue candies there are compared to green ones (ratio) or calculate the decimal fraction to tell what part of the group is yellow.

Get Dramatic

Choose a favorite book or story and write a script, complete with stage directions. Try putting on a play or a puppet show. Or, write character descriptions on blank cards, like “an old woman” or “a two year old child,” then play charades and act out the given part.

Make a Museum

Pick a topic and create a museum display using models, pictures, magazine articles, books, newspapers and write-ups by your student. You can set a number of facts to discover or set up an area with a certain size to fill, such as a table or a corner of a room.

Try Being the Teacher

Challenge your older student to choose a book and read it, then write comprehension questions for YOU to answer. Be sure to request an answer key so you can check your work.

FOR TEENS

Dream Up a Shopping Spree

Give your teen a large amount of play money (or just a figure on paper), a few catalogs, and a task to accomplish within their budget, such as redecorating their rooms or planning a party. See how well they can manage their money to accomplish their goals.

Start a Family Newspaper

Whether simply writing on paper or using a publishing computer program, making a newspaper can be quite entertaining. Encourage your teen to include common newspaper features, such as comics, advice columns, advertisements and editorials as well as news articles, all about your family.

Create Puzzles

Have your teen try a hand at puzzle-crafting. Quarter-inch graph paper works well as a base for word search and crossword-type puzzles, or plain notebook paper works well for secret codes. You can give a word list to your student, or let him or her create one for a favorite subject. Remind your teen to make an answer key, then take a shot at solving their creations.

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No matter what age group your child belongs to, you can keep the brains active all summer long with just a teensy bit of coaxing. Play thinking games now and reap benefits this fall when school starts!