Keep Your Child's School Skills Fresh This Summer

For many children, summer means: sleeping in, watching TV, hanging out with friends and maybe a sports camp or two. But for most, it doesn't mean: practicing math facts, improving writing skills or researching science topics. So, the question arises: how can you keep your child's skills fresh while not infringing on their well-deserved chill time?

The answer is actually simple. In fact, you can involve your kids in creating those lessons to freshen up their skills. Here's how to do it.

1.Math: Have your kids make up a daily summer schedule. In order to avoid too many hours spent in front of the TV, computer or music players, your kids will need to pencil in that precious electronic time. You give them guidelines that may include things like total number of TV-hours per day, consecutive number of minutes at the computer, etc.
What do they learn? - time management; adding and subtracting decimals.

2.Writing: Tried and true - postcards to grandparents! Buy some sturdy 4x6 index cards (white or multi-colored), some stickers, and postage stamps. Have your kids decorate their own postcards, address them and stamp them. Then, when something newsworthy happens, they can quickly send a note to grandma or another relative or family friend who might be interested. If you have any old distant college friends with kids their age, perhaps they could penpal.
What do they learn? - friendly letter writing skills, penmanship, sentence structure.

3.History: This one's a bit of a bribe. If your kids are bugging you to go to their favorite amusement park or arcade, tell them they will need to present you with good reason for the visit. Create an ad contest: they need to research these venues and present the historical facts about them in some creative way (kind of like Darren's ad proposals to his clients on "Bewitched"). The more creative they are, the more likely it is you will take them to their fun destination.
What do they learn? - research skills, presentation techniques, project organization.

4.Science: You will need to give up your kitchen for this. Tell your kids (the ones over 11) that when they make dinner (or lunch), you will spring for a fun dessert (your own, a trip to the ice cream parlor, whatever works). They will need to find recipes and create a grocery list (this is where you will need to help, too).

What do they learn? - what mixes, what doesn't, food combining, math skills (adding, doubling fractions, etc.), time management.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Once you get going, the ideas will just pour in for you. You will need to adjust any of these activities based on the ages and interests of your own children. If you have a friend or neighbor with kids, get them involved, too. You know, the more the merrier! Remember, no matter what your kids say about "summer free time", you could make it not only a summer to remember, but a school year to keep fresh, too! Good luck!