• SUMMER LEARNING SERIES

50 Creative Ways to Prevent Summer Brain Drain

July 1, 2011 | 3:30 PM | By Tina Barseghian

   

The Fourth of July weekend is a great opportunity to take a break, but during the rest of the summer, it’s important to keep those brain muscles flexed with fun learning exercises. We’ve written about math games, ideas for reading exercises, and technology and science projects, and of course, MindShift’s own 50 fantastic educational apps, games, and toys.

Similarly, Accredited Online Colleges has created this comprehensive list of 50 creative ways to fight the summer slide, a collection of ideas from all across the Web (including MindShift). Goes to show that ordinary summer activities like opening up a lemonade stand or going to a baseball game can be turned into learning opportunities. They asked me to repost, and I do so with pleasure. Enjoy!

READING AND WRITING

1. Keeping up with reading and writing skills over the summer is key to maintaining learning throughout the year — so pay special attention to these creative learning activities.
2. Create a book club: Make reading social with a summer book club for kids
3. Keep a journal: Encourage kids to stay sharp in their writing by keeping a journal, discussing summer activities and more.
4. Find summer writing camps: Older kids can check out summer writing camps, often available through local newspapers.
5. Read throughout the day: Offer reading opportunities morning, noon, and night, with the newspaper, websites, books, magazines, and more.
6. Write a comic strip: Develop creativity, writing, and humor with a fun comic strip.
7. Read books about summer activities: Before heading to the beach or a baseball game, pick out a book that discusses the activity.
8. Email friends and family: Have kids write to friends and family over email to keep in touch while also keeping up with their writing practice.
9. Encourage reading in bed, even if it pushes bedtimes: Allow your children to read in bed, even allowing them to stay up later as long as they are reading.
10. Start a blog: Create a blog for your child to update over the summer, and share it with family and friends.
11. Read everywhere: Read street signs, billboards, and anything else you can find while you’re on the go this summer.
12. Designate a family reading time: Create a time when your whole family reads, individually or as a group.
13. Buddy up: Pick out books for your kids to read together with their friends for fun and a shared experience.
14. Pick up comic books: Build a renewed interest in reading with comic books this summer.
15. Read aloud each day: Even if it’s poolside, listen to your child read aloud every day.
16. Summer reading camp: Scholastic offers a Summer Challenge, a virtual reading camp that engages kids in competitive reading over the summer.

PLACES TO GO

Going out and getting active is a great way to have fun and learn this summer.

1. Go to a baseball game: Discuss strategy and scores while taking in a baseball game.
2. Visit museums: Museums often have summer programs for kids, so stop by and check out what they have to offer.
3. Go out to eat: Do menu math at a restaurant, asking kids how much food they can afford with a certain amount of money.
4. Go on tours: Whether it’s a chocolate factory or a glassblowing studio, take advantage of tours so kids can learn how everyday items are made.
5. Camping: Camping offers an excellent opportunity for discussing nature and the world around you.
6. State and national parks: Parks offer a multitude of learning opportunities, and fun family experiences as well.
7. Visit the zoo: Take a family field trip to the zoo to see the animals and learn about animal life.

AT HOME

Try these ideas on summer days when you’re sticking around the house.

1. Get crafty: Adopt a daily craft activity to do as a family every day.
2. Build a treehouse: Combine outside fun with construction by building a backyard treehouse, remembering to discuss measurement (and safety) as you go.
3. Create a lemonade stand: The classic lemonade stand offers many lessons in math and business.
4. Play board games: Board games build thinking skills and are a fun way for kids to play and learn over the summer.
5. Track daily temperatures: Fight the summer slide while tracking the summer heat wave by tracking the temperature each day with your kids.
6. Calculate your family’s emissions: Use the EPA personal emissions calculator to discover your emissions as a family, and discuss how you can improve.
7. Plant a garden: Teach kids about nutrition and growth with a summer garden.
8. Count money when playing Monopoly: A family game time with Monopoly can turn into a math lesson when kids act as the banker.

WEBSITES

Use these websites to have fun learning this summer.

1. Kids Off the Couch: Get a weekly newsletter with great ideas for getting kids out and learning for the summer and throughout the year.
2. Storyline Online: Visit Storyline Online to watch videos of actors reading children’s books out loud.
3. Smithsonian Kids Collecting: Kids can start a collection over the summer with the Smithsonian’s program.
4. Thinkfinity: Thinkfinity has fun games and learning activities for year round learning.

ACTIVITIES

These are just a handful of the fun learning activities you can try this summer.

1. Make grocery store visits educational: Think about the grocery store as a great place to practice math skills, and bring that same idea home to the kitchen, too.
2. Build a robot: Find cool and kid-friendly robot projects to take on over the summer.
3. Create a picture journal: Keep your child engaged and thinking about the activities you’re doing this summer by using a camera and notebook to create a picture journal.
4. Create a puppet theater: Make puppets with outgrown gloves from the winter, and create a story for kids to act out.
5. Citizen scientist: Turn kids into citizen scientists this summer, putting them to work as scientific researchers in projects over the summer.
6. Build your own game: Check out projects that allow you to build a game over the summer.
7. Play car games: Play ABC games during long car trips.
8. Map out your trip: Involve your children in vacation planning by helping them create a map for your trip.
9. Programming: Using programs like Scratch and Kodu, even young children can get started on programming over the summer.
10. Finish schoolbooks: Often, school books like math journals aren’t completed by the end of the year-put them to good use and finish them over the summer.
11. Do art projects: Practice drawing, take pictures, or sculpt together, and discuss the meaning of art while you’re doing it.
12. Visit the YMCA: Find a great YMCA summer program for your kids to enjoy.
13. Public library incentive programs: Public libraries often have interactive programs for students over the summer, typically with incentives like pizza or tickets to sporting events.
14. Summer camp: From web design summer camps to ones that promote healthy eating and exercise, summer camps can keep kids active mentally and physically.
15. Summer school: Many school districts have programs targeted to students who need to learn over the summer, so find out if there’s one in your area.
16. Day camp: Camp doesn’t have to be a 6-week sleepover affair to be effective-check out day camps for summer learning activities, too.

Spring Potluck...

JOIN US FOR LPCS PARENTS NIGHT AT THE LIBERTINE!

Saturday May 11th 

from 6 to 8pm

at the Libertine Bar,  

2101 Greenville Avenue Dallas 75206

A $15 donation at the doors gets you delicious snacks, drinks and hanging 

out with other very fun current and past LPCS parents. All proceeds go to 

the non-profit organization, Way Into Music, that has provided and continues 

to provide fantastic music and voice lessons every week to our elementary 

school children, free of charge. That’s right!  Our Way Into Music teachers

(Amy and Marc) have donated their time and talents to our children and now 

we have a chance to give a little back. www.wayintomusic.com

This activity is for adults only, please do not bring children.

This event is for current and alumni parents of LPCS...we hope to continue this 

event each year as a way to strengthen our current and past LPCS community.

Printed invitations will not always be possible to send out so to make sure you 

don’t miss any future LPCS alumni information please email 

alumni@edcschool.org with subject line “add me to the alumni list”

Additionally, please check the LPCS facebook page for updates: 

www.facebook.com/lindsleyparkcommunityschool

Celebrating Screen Free Week is a great way to begin limiting your life in front of a screen and setting a great example for our children.  Without electronics, where would we be?  As old as I am, I do remember those long, carefree days without cell phones and cable...sadly, my kiddos have no such memories.  But it's easy enough to slow it all down, one day at a time.

“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Moving On Meeting

All parents of 2nd and 3rd graders please join the Parent Organization Thursday April 11th at 6:30 in Mary Loew's room for a quick meeting to help get ready for this year's Moving On ceremony.

It’s O.K. to Put Yourself First...

APRIL 7, 2013, 9:01 AM

It’s O.K. to Put Yourself First

By GLENNON MELTON

After I found out I had neurological Lyme disease, I spent two painful years attempting to recover. Since there was no end in sight, I thought a lot about how I’d change things if I ever got my life back. I considered how I would spend my energy if I were ever granted any. When I finally climbed out of bed, I decided that to the greatest extent possible, I would quit doing the things I didn’t like to do and do the things I did like to do.

Self-care is no easy undertaking in a culture that glorifies martyrdom as the wife/mommy/woman ideal and living in community as the family ideal. Deciding to take care of oneself first feels radical and dangerous, because it makes other folks uncomfortable. But an experience like mine with Lyme disease makes a woman care a lot less about what makes other people crazy and more about what makes her crazy.

In my worst Lyme years, often bed-bound, I dreamed of the ocean. The ocean calms me, as does a slow-paced lifestyle. Limited social interaction is good for me. I need other people in moderation. And no rat race, please — too much ambition makes me jumpy. Also, I love Jesus, but not church. Lately, just like marriage and parenting, church feels like not enough and too much. So for now, Sundays are for the kids, the ocean and time to think and pray. Sacred enough for me.

That’s selfish, they say. Antisocial. No neighborhood? No ambition? No church? Sacrilegious. Un-American. What about the kids? What about community?

But what about the individual? What about her? In all of those years of striving for community, I lost her. And I want her back.

To that end, we moved out of our McMansion in a D.C. suburb and into a condo in a retirement community near an island. My kids don’t have a lot of friends here, but they do have a lot of grandmas. When they’re grown, they can decide where to live. Adults are allowed to do that. We really are.

We’re also allowed to say these things, if we want to:

No, I can’t go to the PTA meeting. No, I can’t do those dishes — you’ll have to. No, I can’t travel to the destination wedding; I’m saving up for a quiet weekend away with my sister. No, no girls’ night for me — how about coffee next week, instead?

Before I got sick, I would have worried about what people would think of these refusals. Would they accept my No, I can’ts? Now, to my great relief, I see that what matters is that I accept my own No, I can’ts. Because now I see that every no is a yes to something else that fits better.

Two months ago, my husband and I separated. In the aftermath, I’ve found myself using the same survival skills that helped me through my disease. Each moment, I ask myself two questions: How can I love myself best right now? What do I need?

The answers are usually the same: I need to sweat a little, take a short nap, watch an hour of Bravo, eat some Twizzlers. Some days I need a trip to my holistic doctor, and other days it’s a stop at the Botox center. I’ve discovered that happiness is leaving yourself be — silencing the accusatory voices in your head and embracing all your contradictions.

Focusing on answering those two little questions makes waiting on the answers to the big questions (my marriage, my health) tolerable. I can’t answer the big questions anyway. But the little ones are all mine.

Since I know what I need today, I’ll be fine if my marriage comes back together. And since I know what I need today, I’ll be fine if it doesn’t. I’ll be fine if my Lyme flares up again or if it stays quiet. And my kids are O.K. because I am. They’re watching me. They are watching me survive and squeeze out joy from each day, no matter what comes.

They will learn that they do not have to take care of their mama — that their dad doesn’t even have to take care of their mama — because she’s got that covered. They do not have a martyr for a mother, so they will learn that neither parenting nor marriage requires martyrdom. They will learn that caring for oneself is one’s own privilege and responsibility, forever and ever, amen.

Thanks to my Lyme disease, I finally feel certain that I am the great love of my life. I know what my love needs, and I know how to take care of her. It’s a beautiful, lasting relationship.

Happiness...

Screen Time and Childhood

Screen Time and Childhood

by Jennifer Rogers 

Fourteen years ago the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement addressing children’s screen time that created a media hubbub. The statement was weak and ineffective. The ruckus was in grand disproportion to the Academy’s ho-hum recommendation that parents “avoid television for children under the age of two years.” 

It generated no positive results. Screen time for all children continues to increase. Parents still consider the television a member of the family. Mobile apps are every parent’s new best friend.

Parents now assume screen time is an important element in early childhood development. Only 14% of parents remember their pediatricians giving any advice about media use, despite the Academy’s 2011 reassertion of their policy. Pediatricians know parents quit listening to that message more than a decade ago. Our best educators worry about the influence of unregulated technology use on the growth of young minds, wonder at the obvious but under-reported connections between screen time and the deterioration of attention. They know they cannot hold the attention of children raised on two-second sound bites.

Children spend an average of five to seven hours every day in front of a screen. The only activity that occupies more time for children is sleeping. These same young kids are experiencing speech and language delays, and chronic attention problems. Literacy is becoming increasingly hard to achieve, creativity rare. Though there is little research to establish connections between so many young children’s failure to thrive and their over-exposure to technologies, the conclusion that screen time is corroding young minds seems ridiculously obvious to most teachers.

The AAP’s most recent research indicates that a shocking 90% of children younger than two watch some form of electronic media. By age three, one third of these kids have televisions in their bedrooms. Modern parents consider one of the most unpredictably dangerous influences on the lives of young children to be a peacekeeper, a “safe” activity for their children.

Well-educated, upwardly mobile parents fancy educational technology for kids. Lower income families use the television as a babysitter. The New York Times calls this the “app gap.” The Times points out that both sets of parents are thumbing their noses at the AAP, relying on screens to occupy their children.

The Mayo Clinic’s available information for parents acknowledges a lack of definitive research, but links too much screen time to behavioral problems, irregular sleep, poor academic performance and, most convincingly, obesity. Most major public health organizations have described obesity in epidemic terms. Screen time is obviously not the only cause of obesity, but experts consider it a primary gateway to things like soda pop, sedentary lifestyles and high-fat snack foods.

The effects of screen time on the health of families are easy to visualize. They are All American images: An overweight family gathered around the television, eating separate, high-fat meals, sharing two-liter bottles of soda. Young children eating finger-foods in their car seats, mesmerized by the screens attached to their parents’ head rests. Bug-eyed youngsters passing time on iPads and cell phones loaded with mobile apps.

The AAP, the National Institute of Health and the Mayo Clinic urge parents to limit and plan screen time, and strongly discourage allowing children to eat in front of a screen. Do not allow children to have televisions or computers in their bedrooms, they say. Do not leave the television on throughout the day. Make choices. Plan outdoor activities. Turn the television off for a day. Though teachers know parents are not following the AAP guidelines, they know less screen time for longer would build a healthier child.

A paltry 10% of parents follow the AAP guidelines. There are apps available for kids so young they are more inclined to chew the cell phone. Fishing poles and family meals are Norman Rockwell, retro visions of a time that may be forever gone. The thought of commuting or eating or falling asleep without a screen makes most parents shudder.

Teachers do not have spare time and money to sponsor research. Studies into the effects of screen time on children will probably always be poorly funded and inherently limited in scope and value. Even the best studies cannot compare a mature adult with the person she might have become, had she enjoyed a different upbringing. When a child is diagnosed with hyperactivity or an attention deficit, parents can get a prescription with relative ease. But they cannot get a do-over. When an adolescent commits an act of violence, it’s too late to turn off the video games.

Good parenting has never been easy. Bad parenting has never been easier. Screen time seems like a safe, peaceful, educational way for parents to entertain their children. Teachers of every age group know we will have to change our approaches to remain relevant and keep kids engaged in learning. Good teachers of the world will continue to dream of every child reaching his or her potential. Good parents of the world will dream too, resisting, adjusting and adapting to protect our children from the influences most of the world has accepted without question.

Jennifer Rogers has been a primary teacher for 20 years, the last 10 at Countryside Montessori School in Northbrook, Illinois.  She completed AMI primary training in Atlanta, Georgia and AMI Assistants to Infancy in Denver, Colorado.

Three minutes of sweetness...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TovzOXeh24