Tips For Summer Support: How To Help Primary Kids

Week 6 Focus: Summer Support For Primary Kids

Have you ever worried about your child forgetting what was learned during the school year because of the long summer break? This is often referred to as the summer slide. Maybe you have had some experience with that yourself if you have taken a course and then not looked at the material for a long time. 

Although there will be some lag after a break, if we do things to help make connections with the skills and concepts during the break, the lag will be short lived and with a bit of review, learning can continue. Here are some different ideas for summer support for your child.

Take a break from academics

Just as we need to recharge and refresh, so do children, especially this year after a much more stressful and different type of year. Taking a break from the academics and doing something different for awhile may actually help with improving learning and retention. Fresh ideas and more attention will be easier after a break as long as the break isn't too long.

Connect activities with real life

Do activities that connect the real world with the skills and concepts taught at school. If you would like more details about the various subjects, you can check out my previous blog posts in this series.
Week 1 Focus: Primary Language Arts
​Week 2 Focus: Primary Math
Week 3 Focus: Primary Science
Week 4 Focus: Primary Social Studies Part 1
​Week 5 Focus: Primary Social Studies Part 2

Make activities engaging and fun

Kids want to feel like they are having a break from school. There are many ways to help them continue learning without making them feel like they are doing schoolwork. Using games and hands on activities help to engage them and the concepts get reinforced while they are having fun. Here is an example. This is a blog post I wrote about using manipulatives and games in math. 

Enjoy the outdoors while learning

Let them get outdoors and soak up the sun while learning at the same time. There are so many ways that learning can be done in the real world. Here are some examples.
Try having races and using stopwatches to see how fast they can go. Compare with others. See if they can better the times. 
Go geocaching as a family and search for treasures. This is a great way to learn about places around the community that you may not have known existed. It is also a good way to practice using coordinates and mapping skills.
Collect rocks and sort them by different characteristics. Then find ways to use them for other activities such as graphing, crafts, and rock studies.
Let your child help plan a camping trip. They could help with planning meals, doing the grocery shopping, making lists of what equipment is needed, and looking at routes and distances. 

History, Family Heritage and Traditions

Learn about local history by visiting museums, historic landmarks, interviewing long time residents or doing research at the library. 
Help your child learn about your family heritage, culture, and traditions. 
Create a pictorial timeline of the family.

Get creative practicing academics

It is important to sometimes do activities that specifically reinforce and review skills and concepts in order for them to be maintained. This is the time to get creative with the academic activities. Mix them up with active games and brain breaks to keep learning fun. Try to avoid too many worksheets and drills. Engage your child in reading and writing activities that have themes or special hooks to make them interesting. Perhaps the library has a summer program where different authors visit or they may have incentives for reading a certain number of books. 
Puppet shows are a great way to practice acting out stories. Maybe your child could write some different stories and then create puppet shows to present to the family.
Try using nursery rhymes or simple songs and using them as the springboard for writing new lyrics based on a variety of themes. There are many different examples floating around on the internet this year that are parodies using popular themes. 
Check out my blog posts for struggling readers, writers and learners for more ideas.
Motivating Reluctant Readers
Tips For Helping Struggling Writers In The Classroom
How To Engage Your Reluctant Learners In The Classroom

Math is definitely an area where I suggest using hands on activities and making things as visual as possible. Math is abstract and therefore hard for many young children to understand if they don't get lots of practical exposure first. I have worked with many older children that struggle with understanding how to do basic operations and more complex math because they haven't figured out how it works. By doing lots of games and hands on activities with them, they have been able to move on and be successful in more difficult math situations.
Check out some ways that I have worked with them to help math make sense.
Tips For Helping Math Make Sense

These are just a few ideas that may help to keep the learning going throughout the summer. Remember to have fun and the learning will happen. 

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