
Keep Your Child Smart this Summer
- Posted by Curtis Jones
- Categories Blog
- Date May 23, 2019
- Comments 0 comment
School’s out for Summer – soon. Children across the country are looking forward to their long Summer break. The last thing they might be thinking about is learning during the holiday. However, many teachers will tell you that children forget a lot of what they have learnt during the six weeks away. It can be quite a shock to children to discover how many things they’ve forgotten when they return to school in September. This sometimes causes embarrassment and loss of confidence. In my experience of over 25 years of teaching, it can be an uphill struggle to regain that learning loss. This is particularly true for children with special educational needs.
Helping your child to keep up with their education over the Summer needn’t be a chore. It’s more a case of looking for opportunities for them to practise their skills. Here are some tips on how you can do this.
- Make Learning Interesting.
Find out what your child is interested in. If learning is geared around something your child is passionate about, it doesn’t seem like work. In one school I worked at we used to do a project called Cook-a-Meal. The children had to plan and cook a healthy three course meal for themselves and guests. They worked in groups of six and had to consider the dietary requirements of themselves and guests. I remember one child telling me after she had completed her Cook-a-Meal morning: ‘We didn’t have to do any work today’. During the whole project the children had covered the following subjects:
- Science – the human body and diet
- Maths – working within a budget, scaling up recipes, measurement
- Reading – reading recipe books
- Writing – planning menus, writing formal invitations to guests
- Speaking and Listening – planning together, having a formal meal
- Food Technology
As well as this the children had to learn to cooperate in order to complete the task. Academic subjects can be brought into every-day life and it doesn’t have to feel like work.
- Summer Reading
Libraries run reading challenges during the Summer so its simple to access plenty of good books for your child. https://readingagency.org.uk/children/quick-guides/Summer-reading-challenge/
Try to make reading time special. It can be a real bonding opportunity between you and your child. Younger children enjoy being read to. If you share a book with your child, try to get them to recognise some of the words, or take turns in reading. If your child can read independently, sit down with them and read your own book, whilst they read theirs. This shows them that reading is an enjoyable activity that you can share. Show an interest in their book and discuss it with them. If your child struggles with reading, set this as a challenge for them to try to improve by September. They can show their new teacher how much better they are at reading. Teach Your Monster to Read is a free app which young children really enjoy.
Reading for research can also be a good way for children to pursue their interests. If you’re going away somewhere, get them to research what you could do whilst you’re there.
- Summer Writing.
Look for writing opportunities during the Summer. You could ask your child to create a Memory Capture. We forget a lot of what we have experienced as a child. The Memory Capture is a way of recording experiences soon after they have happened so that they don’t forget. They can add photos or draw pictures. For younger children they could add captions to pictures, or you could help them write down their memories.
Writing stories with children can be a lot of fun. There are plenty of ideas online for this. Allow your child’s imagination to run wild and help them with any parts they find difficult. Children can be very imaginative, but the physical act of writing can hold them back. If you assist them, they can enjoy the experience much more.
Writing postcards may be less common now, but people still like to receive them. If you’re lucky enough to be going away, get your child to write a postcard.
- Summer Maths.
We use maths all the time. There are plenty of opportunities to help your child keep up with their maths skills as part of every-day life. Planning meals, writing shopping lists and cooking all involve maths. If you involve your child in part of this, it can help them see how to apply maths to every-day problems.
You could also involve your child in planning how to spend within a budget. This could be on a day out, or a trip to the local shop.
Another idea is to get them to work out times. For example, if you need to be somewhere at 11am and it takes 2 hours to get there, when will you need to set off?
My experience is that common problems children have in maths are as follows:
- Recalling number bonds (2+8=10, 3+7=10 etc.)
- Times tables
- Converting measures (g to kg, ml to litres)
- Fractions, percentages and decimals
- Solving problems
- Reading scales on measuring jugs or weighing scales
- Reading bus and train time tables
Typical problems they struggle with are as follows:
- I buy 3 things costing 20p each. What change do I have from £1?
- In a recipe for 4 people you need 100g of flour. How much flour would you need for 6 people?
- A packet contains 24 biscuits. There are 5 people in your family. How many biscuits will they have each? How many will be left over?
- The distance from Leeds to London is 314.9 km. You have travelled 256.3km on this journey. How much further would you need to go?
As you can see, this is maths we deal with every day. So, it is simple to get your child involved in solving these problems in real life.
- Arts and crafts.
There is often a lot of practical maths involved in arts and crafts. Children can be practising their maths skills without even knowing it.
Learning in the school holidays should be a fun experience. It should be an opportunity for children to develop their own interests. It only takes a few hours a week to keep them on track. If they keep up with their skills, rather than letting them slide, it will set them up well for their new year in school.
If you’d like help with this, we run fun activities throughout the Summer to keep children’s brains active. Have a look at what we can offer by clicking here.
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