June 14, 2006

How to help your child have a good summer

There are many ways to help your child have a good summer and prevent those academic skills from getting rusty.

Teaching good citizenship, understanding history, getting close to nature, and getting involved in a variety of projects are all ways you can help.

In terms of good citizenship, check the newspaper for volunteer activities. Make a weekly visit, for instance, to an elderly person in a nursing home. Visit the animal shelter, the fire station, or a hospital to show children what goes on at these institutions.

When it comes to understanding history, your own family is a good place to start. If possible, collect photos of all grandparents and great grandparents. Have children write their names and birthdates on the back of the photos. Tell stories about the family.

Discuss the meaning of holidays with children. Most newspapers print background material. Try to celebrate in the old-fashioned way — parades on the Fourth of July, resting on Labor Day, etc. If you take a trip, visit the historical sites along the way. Save the information brochures as you go. Check out library books or videos to reinforce new learning from the trip.

Visit a cemetery. Find the oldest stone. Read the inscriptions and talk about the past with your children.

Summertime is also the perfect time to get close to nature. It can be fun and educational to give children a garden plot in the yard or a window box or planter on a balcony. Be sure the child has full responsibility for the plants.

Read the daily newspapers’ weather map. Let children figure out what the weather is where friends and relatives live.

Camp out for a night on the balcony, your yard, or at the state campgrounds. These experiences all add to children’s sense of perspective, self worth, and their place in relation to the environment and to other people. Every experience can be a learning experience and summertime is the perfect time to explore some of the alternatives that are not always available at other times of year.

It also can help to “get organized.” Have children start a collection, be it rocks, stamps, baseball cards, bottle caps, labels, marbles, leaves, or bugs. Arrange them in some orderly fashion by categories, by color, or alphabetically, for example.

Suggest that kids swap paperbacks, comics, or magazines with extended family and friends. The local library might help organize a swap.

It‘s also a good time to help your child develop a sense of responsibility. Ask children to take charge of family recycling. Teach boys and girls how to take care of their clothes, sort and fold laundry, use the washer and dryer or help at the laundromat, sew on buttons, iron, or polish shoes.

Have children plan all aspects of a party. They can help decide on the guests, phone or send invitations, plan the food, get the house ready, greet and introduce the guests, and clean up. They’ll be very proud of themselves.

Summer is also a good time to bolster the three Rs. Recommend that children keep a diary — a journal of their activities or the family’s. Take time every day for the whole family to read by themselves or together. Even 10 or 15 minutes is fine. Allow children to choose reading materials. Introduce children to library’s summer reading program. Have kids follow a favorite newspaper comic strip all summer. Have them write letters or send postcards to cousins, grandparents, and friends.

Have them review cash register receipts. Kids can check them for accuracy when you’re unloading groceries. Adding the prices up each week will keep math skills sharp. You can also teach youngsters to compute gas mileage.

All these suggestions can help make for a good summer.