Seton Magazine Catholic Homeschool Articles, Advice & Resources
School may be out for the summer but experts say keeping your child’s mind engaged while school is out is critically important.
Math, reading and spelling are three core subjects that will suffer if young minds are not exercised during the summer months. Studies say kids can lose 22 percent of knowledge and skills they gained during the previous year! That means you could spend the first two months of the school year reviewing and re-teaching things your children should already know.
On the other hand, it is summer and you and the kids should have some well deserved R & R. Year-round-school could lead to overload, so how does this balance out, having summer fun without slipping academically?
Make the Education Fun
Many families take advantage of summer programs, often found at the public library. Of course you want to keep things supervised, especially if these are new territories to you, but they are great ways to study new and fun material and expand a child’s horizons.
Summer’s also a great time to check out museums, learn a craft, or make day trip excursions to local attractions that we don’t seem to have time for in the school year!
At Seton, we have found that in academics, many parents take advantage of summer to go in one of two directions. The first is with fun subjects such as learning new languages or beginning musical or art instruction. To that end you may want to check out Learning Spanish with Grace, an outstanding product with a great track record.
Or perhaps you may try some Latin instruction from Memoria Press. Their products include a wealth of teaching and supplemental materials.
If you are interested in training your children in music, summer’s a good time to check out the award-winning Children’s Music Journey. It features the greatest composers/performers of all time who expertly teach children about their lives, works and how to read music, play piano with both hands, compose and improvise.
It’s beautifully animated and incorporates a “teach, practice, apply” methodology. That ensures that students have fun learning by taking part in engaging lessons, activities and games. Children as young as four can learn piano – guaranteed!
A Spoonful of Sugar
Another way many Seton families take advantage of summer’s slower tempo is to catch up on areas in which students were not at a desired level. This may take the form of reviewing a math course with interactive math software or spending some time on remedial English or grammar workbooks.
A word of caution here; summer’s a time of taking it down a notch, a chance for the kids (and you) to lighten it up a bit. If you decide that remedial work is in order, consider administering it in small doses to avoid burnout and be generous with free time or other student valued rewards!
Using the math example: perhaps a student finished Saxon 7/6 but their grasp was not quite stellar. Summer presents a golden opportunity to use interactive math software to review the 7/6 material from a new perspective. With the comprehensive lesson-by-lesson tutelage found in the math software, your student will build a stronger foundation that will pay dividends for years to come! Math software is available for Saxon 5/4 and higher.
To sharpen language arts skills, we have an excellent collection of workbooks to review, refresh, and relearn. The workbooks cover writing, grammar, diagramming, capitalization and punctuation.
For the wee ones, take a look at the Melissa and Doug educational toys. You can be sure that we’ve chosen only the best of their product line for you!
In any event, it’s summer, so have some fun and recharge those batteries! Swimming lessons anyone?
