Any parent who has spent three sultry months with a couple of bored children knows that summer is the longest season. The school year has ended and children move from a highly regimented routine with scheduled studies and activities to almost unlimited freedom.
Lazy, unstructured summers can lead to children spending too much time in front of the television or playing video games. Research shows that children can lose up to 60 percent of what they most recently learned over the course of the summer. Freedom from school obligations means that children also have more time to engage in unstructured, imaginative play or to create long-term projects that may keep them busy for days.
It’s important for parents to have a plan incorporating exercise and imagination to keep children’s minds and bodies active during the summer months, but it doesn’t have to break your budget.
Here are ten hot tips for a fun, active, and mentally stimulating summer:
1. Family Suggestion Box. A week or two before school lets out, sit down as a family. Decorate an old shoebox with stickers or pictures clipped from magazines. Cut a slot in the top and attach a pencil with a piece of string. Now sit down and brainstorm fun summer activities. Write the ideas on colorful slips of paper and put them in the box. Whenever boredom threatens, grab a “suggestion” from the box. Leave the box on the kitchen counter or dining room table along with a few extra slips of paper so children can add ideas whenever they think of them.
2. Let’s Pretend. Reading should be a normal part of every family’s life, and summer is no exception. Set aside an hour each day for “story time.” Reading can be a great way to jumpstart imaginative play. Instead of merely reading t...
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...t, spread a blanket and enjoy a meal outdoors. When night falls, unroll a sleeping bag and tell stories with a flashlight until you fall asleep.
10. Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt. Make a list of things your neighbors are likely to have on hand and unlikely to miss. Some suggestions: paper clips, clothespins, pencils or rubber bands. Or grab a clipboard and check off larger items without claiming them. Set out on a door-to-door excursion. Spend time with old friends and meet new ones while walking outside.
While it’s important to keep children mentally and physically challenged during the summer months, keep in mind that your children will only be young once. In other words, never forget the fun factor. Make sure that all activities are age-appropriate and properly supervised, and then let your imagination and theirs run wild in the quest to beat summer boredom.
Start cleaning up. Wash the dishes, clean the kitchen, mop the bathroom floor, pickup toys from all around the house, and put a load of dirty clothes in the washing machine. Finish your homework, studying, and get yourself prepared for bed. Get a shower, brush your teeth, and collapse across the bed. Then jump back up, put the clothes in the dryer, set the coffee pot, and alarm clock. Get back into the bed and be asleep before your head lands on the pillow.
The summer vacation students on a traditional schedule receive could be very beneficial since summer gives time for the students to attend camps or other activities that would allow them to learn. The camp may not be like the learning in school, but students would be able to get a different style of education while having fun. Lynn-nore Chittom and Jeff Klassen, two authors who wrote about year-round vs. traditional schooling say, “Critics also cite year-round school as an obstacle to summer enrichment programs such as youth camps, and note that the balanced calendar model can hurt students and industries dependent on short-term summer employment” (Chittom). If students are going to school all year with only some short breaks, when would they have time to go to camp? Even if their camp is during one of their breaks, the students would have homework to complete, thus eliminating the educational effects of the camp on the student. Also, teen...
During Summer break children can enjoy more unstructured time and families can go on vacations. Summer seems to be a large block of time that parents and kids can use to take a breather...But, there is a shadow that often hovers over this lengthy break - a shadow commonly called the summer slide.
and get a good laugh at the theater or relax and talk about politics at the baths. In the city the
Another significant reason is summer vacation needs to be longer. The primary reason for this is children need time to wind down and relax before they have to go back to school. For instance, during the summer children relax and prepare for school, if they...
"Reading." The Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence. Ed. Jerome Kagan and Susan B. Gall. Online Edition. Detroit: Gale, 2007.
Ideally, extending the school schedule into the summer equals more learning. Because students are not dedicated to their studies, often they do not retain the information they learned over the school year during summer vacation. According to the article “Will Longer School Year Help or Hurt US Students” Smyth notes that, “Proponents argue that too much knowledge is lost while American kids wile away the summer months apart from their lessons” (Smyth). Smyth argues that students clearly do not retain their lessons over the period of their summer break. However, opponents of the extension of the school schedule say, “summer breaks are needed to provide an academic respite for students’ overwrought minds, and to provide time with family and the flexibility to travel and study favorite subjects in more depth” (Smyth). Smyth’s observation not only protests taking summer away from families but also describes summer as a time needed to rest student’s minds.
Although this may be true and the students may be increasing their intelligence, the absence of a true summer can be a negative for all concerned. Summers off have long been a light at the end of the tunnel for teachers after an intense school year. And students need time to relieve themselves from a constant social setting where bullying and harassment can be hard to get away from while still at school (Pros and Cons of Year Round School). Summers are very beneficial to everyone. Teachers and students get a break, but also parents get more quality time to spend with their
School districts have switched from the traditional 8-10 week summer vacation to a modified year-round calander to retain the information over the WHOLE year. This way kids will have several shorter vacations. This can cause a positive spike in low-performing schools. The change to school year-round has increased a signifigant amount in the past 10 years.
Saunders, M. (2004, September 7). Try year-round school: The lazy days of summer may hurt children who struggle in school the rest of the time. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, pp. 14A, Retrieved November 6, 2004, from Lexus-Nexus.
A nineteenth century poem titled "The Prelude" reads, "When summer came, it was the pastime of our afternoons/ But now, to school Return'd, from the half-yearly holidays"(Wordsworth 56-58). Summer has long been connected to leisure and playtime, and as a result, during the rise of education, a distinguishable feature on the calendar was no school during the season, meaning that school ran for only nine to ten months in a given year. In 1904, a school in Indiana became the first to operate "year round", or without summer off. Regardless, the system did not receive much attention until 1970, when administrators aimed to relieve overcrowding and better accommodate working families, finding it to solve these issues(Pedersen 12). Since then, the
"The only ones who don't lose are the upper 10 to 15 percent of the student body. Those tend to be gifted, college-bound, they're natural learners who will learn wherever they are" (Smyth 7). This is a statement from an article written by Julie Carr Smyth about how much knowledge is lost over summer because of the amount of education-free time during the break. Smyth's article also state so that "The National Summer Learning Association cites decades of research that shows students' test scores are higher in the same subjects at the beginning of the summer than at the end" (Smyth 6). If the National Summer Learning Association already has research showing that knowledge is lost over summer break, why do we still have such a long break in between school years? All students would agree that every school year goes on the same as the one before: you start the school year reviewing everything you previously learned, then you spend the rest of the year learning new lessons just for them to slip out of your mind again when you get back to school the next year after summer break. It seems as if the only activities that students remember from their summer breaks are the parties, vacations, and Netflix series they spent their time on. That is not how it should be. Shortening the gap between the summer school months will in turn strengthen student education. It won't allow them to lose as much previous education as a long summer break would. A longer school year will in turn decrease education loss, increase productivity year round in students, and provide the simple necessities of daily life such as food for some unfortunate students.
When certain texts are read, different messages can be taken from it. Also, more arguments and ideas can be branched off of that one particular theme. The poem of “Summer” by Walter Dean Myers plays out a very happy scene of the overall joy of summer. This poem shares all the happiness that occurs and can occur throughout and during summer. Memories come rushing back to many who read this and reflect back on their childhood summer days. Yet, one issue that could be branched of this poem and could be noted is the increasing problem of children now days not having such an enjoyable and memorable summer. Kids all over spend their time differently and have many reasons why they do not play outside during summer more often than a few years back. It makes those who have good summer memories of being outside sad that children now aren’t enjoying summer outdoors as much as they could. In “Summer” by Walter Dean Myers, an argument that could be talked about would be that which of children not playing outside in summer as much as before and the main problems that led to this occurring is that technology is a huge distraction, some environments are scary to be in, and just pure laziness.
Summer vacation is legendary. An integral part of American culture, it is loved by students and loathed by parents. Its influence stretches as far as the economy and media of the country. Nevertheless, such a famed part of American educational customs is unnecessary and even detrimental to students. Its institution hinders learning and it can have a damaging effect on the families and students involved.
play games, both inside the house and out in the streets. I think that was a