3 Tips to Encourage Learning During the Summer
Summer is here and school is officially closed until September. While this might be welcomed news to your child, you might feel otherwise. Along with the structure and schedule that school provided your Complex Learner, you also worry about them regressing academically over the summer months. While your child certainly deserves a break and a chance to close those textbooks and just enjoy the sunshine, there are ways you can help prevent learning regression during the summer. Read on for 3 tips to encourage learning over the summer!
1. Reading
The best way to encourage learning during the summer is to encourage reading. When your child reads, not only are they working to improve their reading skills and vocabulary but they’re opening themselves to new ideas, new places, perspectives, people, and more!
To help encourage your child to read over the summer, take frequent trips to the library and encourage them to find at least one piece of reading material. This can be a chapter book but it can also be a graphic novel, a recipe book, or even a magazine. Anything as long as they’re reading!
To make reading even more enticing, set up a reward system for your child. This can be a simple weekly reward like if they read a chapter a week they get to pick where to go to dinner on Friday night or what movie to watch as a family. Or it can be a bigger reward at the end of the summer like if they read 5 books, they get to go to a local waterpark with a friend. Whatever you think will keep your child interested and reading!
2. Explore
Learning over the summer doesn’t have to be structured. You don’t need to do multiplication tables every day for a half hour or ask your child to write a report on a historical figure. It is summer after all and summer is supposed to be fun!
Our next tip to encourage learning over the summer is to get outside and explore! Take a trip to the zoo, visit the local aquarium, set up a scavenger hunt in the park, go collect seashells at the beach, visit the playground down the street, go pick up ingredients for dinner at a Farmer’s Market – the possibilities are endless! When you take your Complex Learner outside and let them explore in a new space, learning happens naturally. Whether it’s discovering what zebras eat for breakfast or what vegetables are in season at the Farmers Market while exploring your child will learn new information without even knowing they’re learning it!
To make this a little more fun, write a list of activities on individual pieces of paper and at the start of each new week, have your child randomly pick a piece of paper and find out what the activity for the week is!
3. Get your hands dirty
While we’ve already said that summer is supposed to be fun, it’s also supposed to be a little messy! For some hands-on learning fun, we encourage you and your child to get your hands dirty!
Pick a new recipe to try to cook every Wednesday. Have your child lend a helping hand with gardening this summer. Or, check out 60 easy science experiments for a whole summer of hands-on fun! Similar to exploring, when your child is taking part in a hands-on activity, they’re too distracted by the fun to realize what they’re actually doing – learning! As your child practices their math skills while baking or learns new science facts while exploring the outdoors, they’re going to be having a lot of fun while also learning!
While summer is a time for rest and relaxation, it can also be a time for some hands-on impromptu learning! Let us know in the comments below what activities your child enjoys over the summer that also helps them keep up with their learning!
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