I have read that when school starts in the fall that teachers spend a good month or so trying to get the children back to where they were academically when the school year ended.  What can you do this summer to ensure that your children are on track when the school year starts.

1) Make your children read every day.  If they are new readers, make them read to you.  Model the behavior for them.  At my house we all sit down and have some quiet reading time everyday.  Mostly I do this for my own sanity and to stop the otherwise non-stop chatter.

2) Play board games.  Most games require reading, counting, and addition of some kind.  Monopoly, Scrabble, the kids won’t even know that they are using educational skills.

3) Take some educational field trips.  Make time for the museums that you might ordinarily not go to.  Most children are fascinated by art museums.  A fun thing to do is a scavenger hunt at a museum.  Stop by the gift shop and pick out a few postcards depicting items in the museum.  Then go find them.  This should excite even the most reluctant museum go-er.

4)  Keep a family journal about your summer vacation.  Not only will it encourage your children to write about the things that they are doing, it might also inspire them (and you!) to be more creative in your activities, to think outside of the box, and look at things in a new way.

5) Study your family tree.  Have the kids make up a list of questions to ask Grandma the next time she calls.  Or better yet, go to visit the elderly memebers of your family with a video camera in hand to capture the stories.  Some of them might not be that interesting to the children right now, but one day they will cherish those memories.  I know that my own parents stories of living during the Depression fascinate me now in a way that I could not appreciate when I was younger.

6) Your backyard is a big science experiment just waiting to be discovered.  Give the kids some containers and a magnifying glass and set them loose.

We have been working on this already.  This is  our first year in Texas.  The Texas heat is already here giving the illusion that summer is also.  And no, I don’t want to hear about how much hotter it is going to get.  Nope, don’t want to hear it.  I am plugging my ears.

La la la.  I can’t hear you.

1) Water balloon fight with the neighbors.  We did this yesterday afternoon and it was so much fun.  All I had to supply was a bag of water balloons and the hose.  The kids did the rest.  A wee  bit of advice, buy way more balloons than you think you will ever possibly need.  Because you know what?  There is never enough.  I bought a package of them at Target, 100 balloons for $1.  You really can’t go wrong at that price.

2)Ice cream sundae party.  Invite some of your kid’s friends over on a Friday night after dinner.  Set out all the fixin’s and let them make their own.  Alternately, have everyone bring a topping of their choice and have a sort of pot-luck make your own sundae party.

3) Invest in an old fashioned sprinkler or slip-n-slide.  I really want a slip-n-slide for myself.  I remember how much fun they were when I was a kid.

4) Plant a small container garden.

5) Catch some critters and keep them as pets for a short time.  Read about them.  Learn what they eat.  What their natural habitats are. Then release them back from where they came.  For the record, I am talking about critters like frogs, turtles, etc.  One year we hatched tadpoles and that was amazing.  Right now we are nursing an injured turtle back to health. 

6) Find a grassy hill and roll down it.  Alternately photogrpah your children rolling down the hill.

7) Find shapes in clouds.

Buy a book on constellations.  Go out to an open field at night, away from the lights of the city or suburbia.  Look in the sky for the various constellations.  Read some of the ancient myths after which the constellations are named.

9) Go to a minor league baseball game.  There are stadiums everywhere and it is a great time.  It is much less expensive than going to a major league game.  Eat hot dogs, cotton candy, and perfect “doing the wave.”  Even if you are not die-hard baseball fans, there is something magical about being in a stadium.  Also, can you ever see you children do the chicken dance to organ music enough?  Nope, you can not.

10) Read a book in a hammock. 

Soon enough the lazy days of summer will be gone.

Parents everywhere are  frantically trying to find things  for their children to do.  Or are they?  Has the downturn in our economy meant less children going off to summer camp and more kids spending their days at home exploring their backyard and neighborhood?

If my neighborhood  is any indication that is exactly what people are doing.  I have heard over and over again that people are just going to have a quiet lazy summer at home, maybe a week or two of a special interest day camp, but that is it.  Some parents seem happy about this.  Others a little nervous.  A few seem panicked by the endless hours they will need to fill.

Some of best memories are of being at the house of my cousin during the summer.  I would spend every day there while my parents were at work.  Other than a week or two of vacation bible school in the morning, all of our days were spent swimming in the pool, playing in the yard, and doing crafts.  I loved summer.  I loved waking up knowing that there was no agenda.  

I hope my kids love low key summers as much as I did as a child.  I think that the best memories happen when you aren’t trying.