Summer Fun Tips

The learning shouldn’t stop just because the school days do. Here are some suggestions for fun educational summer activities:

• Tie family outings to books. Create an activity around a book that you read with your child. Have the child look at the pictures and tell the story in his or her own words or create a song about the book. Then, follow up with a related outing. If the book is about animals, take a trip to the zoo or the park. Go to the beach or a lake if the book has scenes taking place near or on the water.
• Ask your children to illustrate stories and engage them in dialogue about their artwork. Keep an album of their artwork so the family can continue to talk about it and so children can see their progress.
• Take advantage of the warm weather and grow a garden together. You don’t need a large space — even a window garden will suffice. Pick flowers or vegetables that will grow quickly so children can see fast progress.
• Bring science home by borrowing science experiment books from the library and then trying them together. Pick some that take advantage of the warm weather.
• Make summer car trips educational. Play games where children count objects or match shapes or colors that they can see from the car windows.
• Sing with young children every day to help them make transitions. Make up songs that talk about daily activities such as waking up in the morning, walking down the street, going to the store, or going to the beach. This can help prepare them for participating in family activities and even for making the transition to attend school.