Learning in the Summer!

Summer is my absolute favorite season. I love being outside and feeling the sunshine. Even as a child, summer was something I always looked forward to. Not because of the typical reason of “school is finally out!”, but rather because of the fun, easy going times summertime brings.

In fact, I’ve always loved school. As a kid, and especially as an adult, I enjoy learning, progressing, and engaging my brain. One of my hopes as a teacher, and as a mother, is to try and pass on my love of education to my son.

So while it is Summer time and I want him to enjoy every minute of it, I also want to show him that learning can happen year round; and it can be fun! ReadingRockets.org offers some great ideas on how to keep up on curriculum during the Summer.

Here are a few I find very easy and very valuable:

1) Incorporate reading and writing into every day:
I personally think this may be the most important step in encouraging academics during the Summer! For our family, reading stories at bedtime is where we get a lot of our daily literacy. I know that during the Summer, bedtimes may be a bit later, therefore the bedtime routine may suffer. However, incorporating that bedtime story every night can be a vital resource to that growing mind!

Choose smaller books, learn to read books, books about Summer, or any kind of book that fits your needs; just make sure you are still reading! Further, one of my favorite things to do when it comes to incorporating fun writing, is writing with nature. Say you go on a hike, you and your children could collect flowers, rocks, leaves, sticks, really anything and see how many letters/words you can create! Journaling about your fun Summer activities is also a great way to keep writing active.

2) Be an active citizen:
Social and emotional growth goes hand-in-hand with academia. Children who are active within their community gain skills in empathy, self-confidence, and problem solving! PBS kids offers a ZOOM program where volunteer resources are offered, different projects to work on, and stories from other children on how community engagement impacted them.

3) “Make cool things”:
Encourage your kids to be hands on! The world of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) is being introduced to more and more school programs each year, and it is great! Pinterest some fun projects you can create based around STEAM, I promise there are so many! And, half of the fun is in trying. If a Pinterest fail happens, use that as a learning opportunity and try it again! STEAM doesn’t have to be boring or limiting, see how creative you and your kids can be this Summer!

While these are only a few suggestions on how to keep learning alive in the Summer, I hope they were valuable. Even more, I hope this inspired you to come up with your own ideas on how to engage kiddos while school is out! Summer learning doesn’t have to be as boring or as daunting as it may seem, just be resourceful and remember to have FUN! Tag or comment with us your favorite summer learning activities!

-Ms. Caitlin
Wellness Coordinator