With more than six weeks off from the classroom for summer break, it can be easy for children and teenagers to lose learning skills they otherwise mastered during the school year. Most children lose about two months of grade level equivalency over the summer months.
Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning is promoting DIY Summer School with daily social media posts on their Facebook page and their Twitter page Special care was made to make these DIY Summer School activities as affordable as possible using common everyday items found around the house.
While Bright from the Start focus is on children 5 and under, these fun and engaging activies can be easily modified for older, elementary-aged kids.
Here’s a look at a month’s worth of daily activities:
1. Read your child's favorite book. Then, dress up and retell the story by acting it out together.
2. Have your child predict how many hops it takes to get from one end of a hall/room to another. Then,
help your child check the prediction.
3. Help your child find different sized rocks outside. Help him/her put them in order from smallest to
largest. Talk about shape, texture, weight.
4. Read your child’s favorite book and have them create new endings to the story.
5. Play animal charades with your child outside. Act out favorite animals, including motions and sounds they
make, and then guess the animal.
6. Help your child sort clean silverware by type and then encourage him/her to count thenumber of spoons and forks.
7. Go on a shapes scavenger hunt in your home. Have your child look for squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, ovals, etc.
8. Put a large chunk of ice in a pan on the table. Encourage your child to explore the ice, talk about properties and find ways to make it melt.
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9. Play with sidewalk chalk. Have your child practice writing letters of significance (e.g.
first letter of name) or drawing shapes with guidance.
10. Fill a pan with water and have your child guess which objects will float and sink.
11. Play freeze tag with your child to work on gross motor skills.
12. Using play dough, help your child cut out shapes using cookie cutters to work on fine motor skills.
13. Put a straight line of masking tape on the floor or ground and have your child try walking a straight line to practice balance and coordination.
14. Collect 10 (or more) objects. Hide them from your child around the house and let your child have fun finding them. Count them as you find them.
15. Go outside, lie on a blanket, talk about clouds, sun, and sky. Have your child draw pictures of what he or she sees.
16. Fill a large plastic container with beans. Use measuring cups to talk with your child about more/less
and volume. You can also practice estimation.
17.Make a homemade alphabet book with your child. Find pictures in magazines that start with each letter.
18. Place flat objects (like a ruler or key) on a dark piece of construction paper. Place in direct sunlight for a few hours. Show your child how the sunlight faded the paper, leaving dark silhouettes. Talk about cause/effect.
MORE: Summer Camp Guide here
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