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School-Aged Children
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Summer work/reading?
How much do you make your school ager read or do "school" work during the summer?
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Re: Summer work/reading?
Not much really. The girls have journals and workbooks if they want to do them but I don't push it at all.
My oldest DD's school sends home a summer packet the kids must work on. Basic things like practice typing, reading a specific book and preparing a presenation on it, and reviewing math facts. She spends less than half an hour a week on that stuff in addition to 30 minutes (at least) of reading a day.
Younger DDs' school doesn't have a summer packet. So they just do the 30 minutes of daily reading and occasionally I'll do math-fact flashcards or a math game with them.
I also found some poetry activities and art appreciation activities that I've been doing with them when we don't have other plans. They don't seem to do much of that sort of thing in school so I thought we'd do a little this summer. But this is only as long as they enjoy doing it.
I generally let summer be summer, and I don't worry about schoolwork much.
However, my oldest is in a fairly competitive magnet program, so she has gotten a pretty substantial math packet for the past few summers. This year, entering the middle school magnet, she has the usual math packet, plus a novel to read and annotate, plus a short essay to write for one of her teachers. I figure that's enough to keep her busy.
My younger son has gotten to the point where he can read chapter books on his own, which he's doing at a good clip this summer. However, he spent the last year with an occupational therapist for fine motor work. He was just discharged in June. We still have the handwriting book he was working on, so I'm having him do a page or 2 a few days a week, just to keep in practice for first grade.
MAKE her? Not often.
But she enjoys reading (usually reads in the car in the morning en route to camp) and we also read before bed. I also bought a book to "bridge" from 1st to 2nd grade that has various activities in it (reading, math, etc.) after I discovered she's forgetting how to spell some of her sight words. It's there and she loves the puzzles and stuff in it so she does it when she wants to. But we never have any designated time for that sort of stuff.
He's going into first grade. He has a packet that if he finishes, he gets a trophy when school starts again. He's done except for one page and this reminds me that I have to bring paper clips home for him to finish it - they have to measure things in paper clip units and we don't have any.
I also bought him a summer bridge book. I don't MAKE him do it, it's something he enjoys doing if he's antsy or we're on a long car trip or something.
He likes being read to (and we're doing the summer reading program at the library, so there's incentive). Usually, at night, I'll read him something if he reads me something. We're doing chapter books for my reading portion - almost done with Stuart Little.
Again, none of this is MAKE. It's stuff he likes doing at this point.
we have family reading night 3 times a week where we turn off everything and everyone reads a book for 30 minutes
DS is 9 and going into 4th grade and I require him to do 2 math worksheets a week and to write a journal prompt weekly but I leave it up to him as to when he gets it done that week.
I also look for other opportunities to sneak learning in (throughout the year) by going to museums, watching documentaries, etc
he still gets plenty of free time and still enjoys his summer vacation