Your child’s education is important. Here’s how you can keep your child’s brain active during school breaks.
Here’s a shocking statistic for you. Over the summer break, your child may be losing up to two months of knowledge. Dr. Ruth A. Peters, writing for TODAY Parenting, cites that all students will experience a learning loss if they don’t engage in some type of educational activity during a long school break, like summer vacation. Your child’s education is important. Here’s how you can keep your child’s brain active during school breaks.
Consider Summer School
According to Dr. Peters, about 10 percent of students across the country participate in some sort of summer school or summertime learning program. However, Peters writes that more than half of the nation’s students, 56 percent, in fact, want to participate in some type of learning program that can help them keep up with school work or help to prepare them for the next grade. By checking with your child’s school or even their teachers, you can find learning opportunities, like summer programs, for your child. Teachers might even offer up some suggestions for great books to read or material to study in preparation for the school next year.
Take an Educational Trip
Family vacations have long been a staple of summer vacation. Use this time to take a trip with the family, but do your best to make it educational. Instead of visiting the theme parks or the beach, consider planning an educational trip. Just because it includes learning doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. There are plenty of kid-friendly learning opportunities around the country such as Washington D.C.’s National Zoo or the International Spy Museum, Family Weekends at Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum or even exploring the ecosystems of South Florida’s Everglades. For the road trip consider swapping out handheld video games and phones for family games that will get your child thinking. Or consider bringing along your device and load it with listenable e-books to help pass the travel time and learn, too.
Become a Teacher
Parents, you don’t have to have an extensive teaching background to be a teacher to your child. Children are constantly learning, and you can help them grow by giving them the support they need by being a teacher when they need one at home. From helping with homework during the school year, reading together before kindergarten or solving printable puzzles together, there are a variety of ways you can teach your child valuable learning lessons from home.
Send Your Child to Camp
There are many ways to learn. Sometimes, you can disguise learning as fun. If your child is reluctant to enroll in summer school consider a sleep-away camp. Great for kids of all ages, summer camps are proven to make kids resilient. According to Dr. Michael Ungar, writing for the online publication Psychology Today, camps can teach children about culture, self-efficacy, problem solving and confidence. Camps are also a great way for your child to discover his or her interests. At summer camps, children have ample opportunity to get out of their comfort zones and try new things in a no-bullying atmosphere. So while your child may be shy to try singing in front of a crowd or diving off of the deep end at home, he or she will have the chance to do it at camp.
Identity Magazine is all about empowering women to get all A’s in the game of life — Accept. Appreciate. Achieve.TM Every contributor and expert answer the Identity 5 questions in keeping with our theme. Their answers can be random and in the moment or they can be aligned with the above article. As a team, we hope to inspire and motivate ourselves and inspire you to get all A’s.
1. What have you accepted within your life, physically and/or mentally? What are you still working on accepting?
That we have to all appreciate the little things and to not take anything for granted.
2. What have you learn to appreciate about yourself and/or within your life, physically and mentally? What are you still working on to appreciate?
I’m blessed to have loving family and friends in my life.
3. What is one of your most rewarding achievements in life? What makes YOU most proud? What goals and dreams do you still have?
Graduating from Arizona State University in 2013 was a huge achievement.
4. We all have imperfections, so we think. The truth–we are all perfectly imperfect. What are your not-so-perfect ways? What imperfections and quirks create who you are–your Identity?
Nobody’s perfect and it’s been hard to accept it.
5. “I Love My…” is an outlet for you to express and appreciate all the positive traits that make you…well… YOU! Sharing what you love about yourself will make you smile, feel empowered, and uplift your spirit and soul. (we assure you!) Identity challenges you to complete the phrase “I Love My…?”
I love my unwavering intensity. Everything I do is 100 percent.
