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There are many ways to help your child have a good summer and prevent
their academic skills from getting rusty.
Teaching good citizenship is a good way to start. 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 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. 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 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‘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.
Summer is also a good time to bolster the basics. Recommend that children
keep a diary — a journal of the family’s activities or
their own. Take time every day for everyone in the family to read by
themselves or together. Even 10 or 15 minutes is fine. Introduce children
to the 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 or gas mileage to keep math skills sharp.
All these suggestions can help make for a good summer.
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