Schooled: Curbing Summer Brain Drain

I don’t claim to be an education expert, however, I feel fairly confident that if your children are spending their summer forgetting everything their teachers managed to cram in into their heads this past school year their brains are going to leech out of their ears in a very SpongeBob-esque fashion.

That doesn’t mean that you need to magically craft an engaging and age-appropriate curriculum out of thin air. There are great programs and incentives in place that you can use to keep childrens’ brains in tip-top shape for fall.

If your child’s teacher could get them to do just one thing this summer, it would be to read. Prince William and Stafford counties have reading lists available. In lieu of that, anything with a shiny award sticker that says “Caldecott” will do just fine.

If that doesn’t interest your teenager, sparkly vampire books will, in fact, do in a pinch. If your child is a struggling reader, read to them. Try “Trumpet of the Swan” or “Charlotte’s Web”.

Our local libraries even have copies of books on audio CD so that you can pop them in your car’s stereo and let your child follow along if that’s the only way you can fit in time for books.

If your child needs added incentive to read, the libraries have you covered, too. Prince William County libraries are hosting Summer Quest, a program that gives weekly incentives as well as prizes for reading books. Summer Quest is free, just like its Rappahannock Regional Library System’s counterpart.

Both Library systems also have programs for teens.

If your child still needs incentive, offer them creative places to read. I had a teacher suggest reading in a (dry) pillow-lined bathtub, which is where I finished Little Women, just because it was different to read there.

Want to sneak in some math and science? Let your children count your change at lunch. See what is buoyant in your pool bag. Take advantage of local science activities at Leesylvania State Park which cover everything from native species to zoology and typically run $5 a session or less.

When you travel, take a list of addresses and let your children mail postcards that keep them writing to friends and family. Keep a journal or scrapbook of your summer and have them write a sentence or two each day.

Make cookies. Make your own barbeque sauce. There are fractions in every single page of your cookbook. Visit a museum, take a hike and count the number of wild animals you see or trail blazes you pass.

Take advantage of the free library programs happening this summer and schlep your kids one. If you’re turning on the television, PBS is still free, even with all your premium high definition channels, and they feature educational programming for all ages that covers everything from phonics to algebra and financial management.

If your children whine, offer them a worksheet instead. I bet they’ll go for Public Television after all. Play a board game or two, or go old school and get out some dominoes. Even my three year old can miraculously count “15s” if you get out a cribbage board.

If all else fails, enter “fun summer education ideas” into Google and I’m sure the internet will be happy to help. Keeping your kids sharp this summer definitely means they’ll be ready to be “schooled” this fall.

Have a great summer enrichment idea or project? Leave a comment or link here and share it!