Summer vacation brain

How to keep our kids still engaged in learning while also allowing them to enjoy vacation.

Every year I was always amazed at the regression that some kids made over summer break and the progress that other kids made over this vacation.

There was no rhyme or reason. It had nothing to do with socio economics, parents worked or didn’t work, siblings at home, big European trips taken. It had more to do with what activities the kiddo participated in day to day.

Imagine if you took off work for two months. Besides being pretty GREAT, how would those first few days back at work be, trying to recall how to do your job?  AND if your job is very specialized and detail oriented it could be even harder. If you are newer to your job this will be even more difficult. If you had just started the job a few months ago, just started learning all the steps to take, and then you left for a few months, imagine where you would be when you got back to work. Maybe not at square one, but you likely would need retraining. 

Our kids go through this same thing in the summer especially with areas of study that are more specialized. Automatically you might think of math - yes, that is true. BUT it really depends on a child’s level of proficiency in any academic area. 

Just like that new job and coming back from an extended break when your child is just learning a concept and then has a long break from it they will regress. So if you have a kiddo who is just starting their reading journey and for 2 months they aren’t reading much at all there will be major steps backward. 

Honestly, when your child is learning a concept that is challenging for them even just a week shows regression.

So what do you do with 2 months of vacation?  Besides relax and play as much as you can. It’s important to not let learning completely slide. It can shift, but it needs to keep going. This is not for next year’s classroom teacher, this is for your child's progress and to ease their struggle at the beginning of the next school year. 

Reading over breaks is one of the most important activities to keep up on. Reading out loud when possible - so that you can hear them continue to push their fluency. Asking questions about the book for deeper understanding. Reading together before bed but also reading on their own. If you have a library in your area there is likely a summer reading program. These are great to keep kids engaged in reading. Even if all your child will read is magazines or shorter stories - as long as there are words on the page - it’s reading. As a former teacher, I’d love for their reading to be challenged so maybe you start to push their reading level for the nightly bedtime reading book. Use that time to start digging into the comprehension of the book. Want to take it a step further - look up companion questions online to keep them further engaged. 

Writing is another area that is fairly easy to keep your children engaged in. Writing the shopping list. Writing in a gratitude journal. Writing letters to grandparents. Easy stuff to implement. There are fantastic daily prompts you can find to get them writing a little longer and a little juicer. 

For the sciences just get them outdoors. Get them doing crayon rubbings of leaves, watch ants walk in a line, observe the night sky, or play in the lapping water of a lake. Ask them to observe, ask them to come up with a question, ask them to hypothesize what the answer is, and then look it up. Having your child come up with a question is higher order thinking. It’s easy for you to ask them something, but for them to come up with the question they want to observe for is next level. This is great for ANY age. 

Ok - I saved math for last on purpose. Math is so specialized. It’s that job your job got with levers and pulleys and buttons that has a very specific order that all these things need to be done in, you finally had a breakthrough and then promptly went on a 2 month vacation. Are you going to remember that specialized job…mostly likely no. 

Math needs more direct teaching. Math needs more direct practice. There are lots of real world examples of math that your child can participate in that are way more useful and more empowering than textbooks. Counting change at the grocery store, (you gave the checker a $20 but the bill was $16.75, what’s the change?) measuring for new flooring, mapping to find distance and time traveled as well as elapsed time. These are how we actually use math. 

BUT we need to do these over and over again. One time measuring for new flooring while accounting for the section that needs no flooring in the kitchen is not something you typically do over and over again. It’s kinda a one time and done thing. Or maybe your kiddo is at a level of math that you can’t quite figure out the real world application to help them. So It’s time for them to use a third party to continue to push their math thinking.

There are lots of apps and workbooks that can be used to push and practice math. I really like IXL Learning. (I do not have an affiliation with IXL - just really like it.)  IXL gamified learning math so that your child is more engaged and wants to challenge up to the next level. They start by taking a math level quiz and then they can jump right in. There are instructions and lessons that are quick and then practice on the concept which is key. You can easily look at their progress as can they. 

I never wanted to fill my children's days up with school work while we were home for summer. It’s pretty easy to add a few higher order thinking questions to the activities you are already doing. You are already reading with them, just encourage a little more. Encourage a little more writing. But like I mentioned, math needs a little more specific work. 

Enjoy your relaxed kiddo. Enjoy a jammies all day and late night snuggles on the couch. Enjoy sitting near a creek and watching minnows swimming around. Enjoy the sound of frogs while telling stories around a firepit. Enjoy staring at the stars waiting for a shooting star.

You got this!!! 🫶