School’s Out!

Although some studies indicate that primary children lose their momentum in reading and language arts during summer vacation, there are fun activities that can help to minimize skill loss. Fortunately, many of these ideas involve parent participation, so they pack a double punch in the plus column.

Lunch-sized brown bags make perfect puppets for kid-authored puppet shows.

1. Blank calendar pages can be downloaded at www.printablecalendar.caThree of these sheets for each child can be sent home during the last week of school, with a tip sheet for parents. Encourage parents (or any significant adult in the child's life) to maintain the calendar with the child. Suggestions for the calendar could include a standard day each week for a library outing; daily you-read-to-me-I'll-read-to-you sessions, even special read-to time. This is particularly good for working parents who can give the gift of scheduled time to a child.

   Letting the child help maintain the calendar gives younger children a sense of elapsed time.

2. Summer and storytelling seem to go hand in hand. Be sure to check out www.yourfavoritestorytellers.org for storytelling techniques. Suggest that parents try to help kids maintain semi-weekly visits to a local nursing home or to elderly neighbors where they can tell the stories they've practiced.
3. Storytelling shouldn't be limited to children. Parents should tell their own stories, which are the best of all for kids. It's good for parents to have a tape recorder running when they are telling tales of their own childhood or stories of their friends and their own parents so the child can replay a story and hear a loved one's voice when Dad's away or Grandma is ill.
4. Parents can cut out a comic strip, like Peanuts™ or one of the other popular strips, glue it to a piece of cardboard, then cut the strip into frames. Sequencing practice has never been easier!
5. Lunch-sized brown bags make perfect – and inexpensive – puppets. Kids can draw faces on the bags and prepare a short puppet play. These always go over well when family is visiting. This activity gives the child practice in structuring a story with a beginning, middle and end. It's also a good time for parents to encourage vocabulary growth. ("What's another scary word you could use?")
6. Trips to the supermarket can hone language and math skills. Put weekly shopping trips on the activity calendar and kids can calculate how many days until they go shopping. Parents might suggest that kids prepare the shopping list. How many items can they remember without looking at the list?
7. Kids at intermediate-grade levels need the same type of skills practice over the summer. Perhaps estimating when it's time for a gas fill-up, or being responsible for collecting the books the family needs to return to the library. It may seem like child's play, but it's real-world success.

May 2004, Vol.34, No.8