Summer Notebooks: The Return

Even though my kids still have almost a month of school left, I spend part of every day prepping for their summer vacation. Some of it is just figuring out what summer activities they are going to do, since I don't send them to regular summer camp. But the rest of it is planning their summer notebooks. I'm not a fan of too many worksheets, but I'm even less of a fan of my kids forgetting what they've learned all year.

It wasn't until last summer, when they didn't have regular camp and I couldn't pretend that they were going to be learning enough all summer, that I realized that I needed to take action. But every time I looked at workbooks, even the "summer bridge" or ones by companies I liked, I got frustrated. Or rather, the teacher in me got frustrated. Tasks were too simplistic to be useful or were geared for kids who struggled with things my kids didn't struggle with. So last year, basically at the last minute, I made my own.

By next year I'll probably have mini binders and all kinds of stuff, but now I'm just using spiral notebooks.

Every morning, they have to do a certain number of pages (usually 2 or 3) before they can have their beloved screens. They can do extra pages if they want to earn more screen time later in the day. I correct it as soon as I can, and I make them come back and fix their mistakes.

Hugmonkey's summer notebook tends to be more similar to worksheets:

Last year there was a lot of tracing and matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This year we'll be focused on counting skills, beginning sounds in words and sight words. I also like to have him draw pictures of family activities as an introduction to journal writing. He can't read the directions, but his siblings can read them if I'm not there, so it works out well.

For the older kids, there will be a lot of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division fact review. (Even though Lovebug won't officially be learning multiplication and division until the fall, he's got the process figured out so he might as well start memorizing). I also have them write sentences about family activities or to answer questions we've been talking about as a family. My favorite thing to do is to gather up non-fiction books, assign them pages to read and have them answer questions pertaining to the pages.

They are both far more into fiction (as am I), so it's a good way to work on reading comprehension and get them out of their comfort zones.

I'm thinking about doing a summer series on my kids' notebooks, detailing how and why I have them do certain things and how to make summer notebooks for your own kiddo. But then I remembered that some of my regular readers are teachers or former teachers, so I'm not sure if the series would be useful. What do you guys think? Is that something you'd want to read about, or would you skip those posts?

Teaching Tuesday: More Summer Notebook Ideas

About a month ago, I posted about helping kids learn over the summer through summer notebooks. I actually remembered that I promised to include more ideas later in the summer, which, if you know me at all, is kind of a miracle. Half the time I can't even remember to set up reminders on my phone the right way.

Anyway, not only did I remember that I was supposed to do it, I am actually doing it. I just hope you find it helpful.

1. Have them make acrostic poems with their names or other special words (let them use a dictionary):
For example:
     Joky
   Energetic
   Noisy

2. Have them make a graph of a bag of M&Ms or Skittles, showing how many colors there are of each candy.

3. Have them calculate the money needed to start a lemonade stand (how much to buy lemonade, how much to "rent" a table from you, how much to make posters) as well as how much they'll make if they sell 10 cups for $.25 and $.50.

4. Have younger kids copy a picture you make from simple shapes, like a snowman and a train.

5. Hand over some old coupons or the Sunday supplement, give kids an imaginary budget and let them figure out a grocery list. This would also work with toy or clothing catalogs, as long as your kiddo was fine with the "imaginary" part.

6. Have older kids turn a short scene from a book into a short play, with appropriate stage directions and dialogue.

7. Have them use index cards to make their own math flash cards, with answers on the back.

8. Have them create a board game about a specific topic, such as Harry Potter, addition facts or dinosaurs. They can write the directions in their summer notebook, then use poster board and index cards to make the actual game.

9. Have them write a persuasive letter to get you to change your mind about a family rule or habit; Ironflower's is about why she should be able to get her ears pierced.

10. Have them write haiku (17 syllables - 1 line of 5, 1 of 7 and 1 of 5) about their favorite summer activities.

Teaching Tuesday: Summer Notebook

You've seen the articles about how much knowledge your child will lose over the summer, haven't you? Maybe you've even gotten flyers from the local tutoring center, promising that your child can actually get smarter over the summer, if you just pay a lot of money and drag them to the center on a regular basis.

If your child is truly behind, as in reading below grade level or doing math below grade level, then by all means have him/her tutored this summer. Although I would ask local teachers if any of them tutor before I sent my kids to a center. But more on that another time.

Everyone else needs to take a breath.

Preventing the summer slack off does not take a lot of ton of time, money or effort. I promise.

1. You'll want to read to your kid every day. If your child is already a reader, this is the time to read them something a bit above their reading level, like the Chronicles of Narnia or A Wrinkle in Time . Use the occasion to build vocabulary (make sure they have a way to interrupt you politely to ask what a word means) and comprehension.

2. You'll want to do a little bit of math every day. With first and second graders, this can be as simple as addition and subtraction fact flashcards. Older kids can review multiplication and division facts or math vocabulary words. Another option is to incorporate math into your bedtime routine, with a book like Bedtime Math. 

The truth is, as long as your kid is doing something during the day besides staring at a television screen and a Wii controller, you can probably stop right there. Especially if they're going to camp or you're taking them to lots of enriching places. But if you insist on having them do more (which I do, it's how my kids earn Wii, Kindle and TV time during the summer), here are a few more ideas:

3. Make them read independently. Let them choose what - comic books, magazines (American Girl and National Geographic Kids are popular around here), movie tie-in books - as often as possible. If you have an extremely reluctant reader, make him/her earn screen time by reading independently. 

4. Create a summer notebook. You can, of course, just buy workbooks for your child's particular grade. But a notebook is more personalized for your child, probably more engaging and definitely cheaper. 

A composition notebook is fine. 

This is Hugmonkey's notebook from when we were stuck in Florida. 

Summer Notebook How-To:

1. Take a good look at the work your kid has done through the school year so you have an idea of what they can do independently.
2. Every Sunday, write directions on the top of 7, 14 or 21 pages (depending on whether you want the kiddo to do 1, 2 or 3 pages per day).
3. Ideas for directions*:

• Have them to write a certain number of sentences, paragraphs and/or pictures about experiences they've had during the week.
• Have them retell a story or chapter you read together the night before.
• Give them 5 to 10 math problems.
• Have them write sentences using and pictures of vocabulary words from the book you're reading together.
• Ask them to come up with 5 math word problems and then solve them.
• Have younger kids match uppercase with lowercase letters, numbers to amounts or shapes of different sizes.
• Have older kids read a newspaper or magazine article, then write down the 5 most important facts from it. 
• Have them come up with 5 things they are curious about and how they could learn about them.
• Encourage them to keep a record of books, comics, magazines and websites they've read during the week. 
• Have them write a letter to a book character or historical character. 
• Let them cut words out of magazines and then sort them into nouns, verbs and adjectives, or long vowels and short vowels, or words they recognize and words they don't. 
• Give them directions for drawing a particular picture (Draw a square. Draw a triangle on top of it. And so on. . .)
• Have them figure out how much coupons from the local paper would save you at the grocery store that week. 
• Have them list and/or draw pictures of their favorite TV shows, songs, books, movies, websites, friends, foods, outfits and places. You can extend it by having them explain why these are their favorites. 

4. Check the work as your kid finishes it or each night before bed. Praise lavishly, but don't be afraid to ask for more details or to help them fix mistakes. 

5. Stop worrying that your kid is falling behind. 

*I'll be doing more ideas for directions in a few weeks, so don't panic if you don't think this will be enough to get you through the summer.