What We're Doing for Summer Learning

Learning in the summer is a hot topic for a lot of parents. I'm honestly not the type of mom that is overly concerned with summer regression. The reason is, I think any amount of involved parenting will yield to successful children. While I do agree that the summer slump is probably a real thing, I think if you're still reading to your child and doing the same things you normally would do during the school year, they're probably going to be fine

If your child wants to be doing workbooks, and they're excited about it and doing it on their own fruition, awesome. If you're trying to force it and it's a screaming match every single day, I would say probably back off, keep their minds engaged in other ways, and just have an awesome summer pursuing the things that interest your child. 

Real life example: my parents spent money on massive summer workbooks and computer games sold by my elementary school every summer. I did those workbooks every summer. I failed my classes every school year. Workbooks don't equal success... involved parenting does. 

All that being said, Kyle loves workbooks and Kinsley loves doing whatever Kyle is doing, so we monopolize on that. I have been a huge fan of School Zone workbooks for ages. (Not Sponsored). I started using these workbooks with Kyle when he was a little over two years old, and we've blown through the preschool version, the Kindegarten one, and now we're working through the first grade book. I don't set any amount of page limit that has to be done each day, and let Kyle do it at his own pace, and he probably does about 5-10 pages a day. 

He also recently did a color by number coloring page that he really loved, and so I bought him this "My Backyard Color By Number" book off of Amazon and he's been doing 1-2 pages of that a day as well. 

This summer Kyle has spent nearly all of his time reading as well. This is again, totally self motivated. He's been obsessed with Magic Tree House Books, and spends literally hours reading in his room in his swing, or somewhere else around the house. 

Kinsley is a completely different ballgame. While she likes to be working on schoolwork like Kyle, it actually brings her a lot of stress so we go super slow with it. When she wakes up in the morning we go through her alphabet flash cards. We've been working on letters with her for the last couple months after her preschool teacher claimed she was "incapable of learning". That was in April, and at the time she only knew maybe 4 letters, and now she's up to 17. (Really great for someone who in incapable of learning huh?)

We also just recently printed off the Confessions of A Homeschooler Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum for her to work on. This is the same curriculum that I used when I homeschooled Kyle for preschool, and I love how gentle it is for delicate and sensitive learners, while also being really structured and organized for me to know what to do with her each day. We typically work through 2-3 activities a day, and then call it good. Anything more than that and she's super stressed out and in tears over it. I think knowing your kids limits are super important with these things. 

I'd love to know what works and doesn't work for you and your kids in the summertime! Do your kids love doing workbooks? Or are they more into creative play and being outside? There is no right or wrong way to do the summer, as long as your kids are loving it and having fun, that's all that matters!


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