Looking for activities to help your children explore, have fun, and learn this summer?
Kids can experience learning loss without educational summer activities. Research shows
that teachers usually spend the first weeks of the school year re-teaching material
that students have forgotten. (In fact, students can lose about 2.6 months of grade
level equivalency in math skills during the summer months!
1) So print and post this
list of fun family activities that will keep math in mind this summer.
Hold a Backyard Olympics
Your kids can invite their friends to compete in 3-legged races, long jump, obstacle
courses, and water balloon tosses. The spectators can hold up to 10 fingers to score the
performance. Post a large piece of paper or chalk board and take turns keeping score.
Then bring out craft supplies to make medals for each other.
Make a summer reading list that helps teach math! Children's literature can be a powerful
way to foster both reading and math learning. Start by printing the
DreamBox Read-and-Learn-Math List,
with beloved stories that also teach math. It even has room to make your own list. Then
head to the library where your librarian can help you find more.
Go on a scavenger hunt
This is a great game for any number of children in any environment.
Create a list of 5-10 things kids can find — if you're in the woods, list items found
in nature. If you're traveling in a city, you can even give each child (or team) a disposable
camera and a list of items to photograph. Assign points for each item — more points
for things that are hard to find — and tally them at the end.
Rate your local parks
Start by talking about your favorite things to do in a park, and
create a score card. Then visit one park in your area each week through the summer, and tally
up the score afterwards. You can create your own scoring system: award double points for
your favorite activities, or subtract points for disappointments. At the end of the summer,
have a special picnic at the winning park.
Create summer collections
Whether you're traveling or staying home, collecting favorite objects
is fascinating for kids and it's a good way to experience the natural environment. Going to a
children's museum or a natural history museum is a good way to get started and inspire
interest. When you get home, sort and categorize your shell, leaf, and rock collections. Long
after summer is over, your collections can remind you of the fun you had!
Chalk up ways to have fun
A box of colored chalk holds a lot of potential for outdoor fun. Read
our May newsletter for how
"Hopscotch can be outdoor math fun."
Remember 4 Square — a ball-bouncing game for 4 kids? Find the rules for this and
more fun games with chalk and numbers here!
Cook a summer meal together
Talk about your favorite summer foods and plan to cook a meal
together. Shopping for ingredients, measuring quantities and following recipe directions,
even setting the table are all great opportunities to talk about the math in everyday
life. What do you need to do to make a dish for more people? How many cookies do you need
to make for each person in the family to have 3? For older kids, translate a European recipe
from metric to US weights and measures.
1.
Click here to read the Primer on Summer Learning Loss,
from The Johns Hopkins University's Center for Summer Learning.
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June 2009
