Ideas for An Educational Summer

My boys (ages 14 and 11) have been homeschooled
during the summers for about 8 years now.
For various reasons, I can't homeschool year round.

Anyway, I've also used these ideas with other children,
when I helped out a friend who had no summer babysitter.

What the kids liked best were kitchen science experiments,
crafts, nature hikes (walks really), more crafts, visits to area historic sites,
more crafts, and hands-on math fun (lots of cooking).

Whatever activities you decide to include in your summer plans,
be assured that you are definitely doing the right thing
by continuing your children's education during the summer.

Check with your local library for educational programs.

Kitchen Science
Crafts
Field Trips
Nature and Science
Hands-on Math
Writing
Reading
Handwriting

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Kitchen science is easy.

Your local public library probably has books of experiments
or can borrow them for you from another library.
These experiments use everyday items to teach scientific principles.
Items we use frequently are vinegar, baking soda, and food coloring.

Here are couple of my kids' favorites.

Dancing Raisins

Into a clear glass, pour 2 tablespoons of baking soda,
add 5 or 6 raisins, and about 3/4 cup of water.
To this add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar.
Bubbles will form around the raisins causing them
to raise to the surface of the water.
The bubbles pop; the raisins dive to the bottom.
The bubbles form again; the raisins rise; and so on.
This will continue for a long time.
My kids and my best friend's kids once watched
the raisins for over 45 min.

Small Volcano (not messy)

Spread baking soda about 1/4 inch thick in a pie plate.
Sprinkle 1 or 2 drops of food coloring in several places
on the baking soda, using different colors in separate spots.
Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of white vinegar
into the pie plate over the colored spots.
The reaction is like volcanos bubbling with colored lava.
After a while the colors will begin to mix.

Kids love crafts.

Almost any craft can be used to enhance those long summer days.
We have painted T-shirts, made nature collages,
made treasure boxes from baby wipe boxes or gallon ice cream buckets,
made mobiles (with subjects tied in with science),
created our own games, made magnets for the fridge,
made CD holders from wood scraps,
done some basic leatherworking,
made simple scrapbooks, and decorated handmade cards.
We have even begun to sew with simple hats and pillows.

Field Trips are always a hit.

Many area historical sites, parks, libraries, or museums
have special days or events for children during the summer.
We live in southern Indiana and visit sites in a 30 mile radius
which include Lincoln National Monument and Historical Farm,
the George Rogers Clark Memorial,
Angel Mounds (a prehistoric Native American settlement),
New Harmony (the site of several failed attempts at a Utopian society),
the Evansville Museum, and several area parks.
Your state's Tourism Department should be able to send you
a list of sites in your area.
Some manufacturing sites also provide educational tours.
Companies like Hershey's, Louisville Slugger bats, and Kellogg's
are among those which come to my mind first,
but many major manufacturers schedule tours for schools or scouts.
Check with other neighborhood moms, organize yourselves loosely,
and schedule a tour for your "homeschool organization."

Nature and Science can be fun.

Nature walks can be very instructive as you point out plants and animals
and talk about God's plan for our world.
For older children, invest in a paperback field guide to trees,
and challenge them to identify the trees they see on your walk,
in your yard, in your neighborhood, or at the local park.
These are also excellent opportunities to collect leaves,
acorns, small pine cones, etc. for nature collages for craft time.

Math can be the most fun and practical subject.

Why? Because hands-on math can, and probably should, include cooking.
This means you can combine it with fixing lunch
-- Please cut this sandwich in half, fourths, etc.
You can combine it with baking cookies, brownies, cakes, or pies.
And you can combine it with fixing dinner by allowing your
child to help you prepare a dish from a recipe card or cookbook.
There are wonderful opportunities to teach measurement
(both standard and metric), accuracy, and counting.
Baking something can include teaching time units and degrees,
or the difference between Fahrenheit and Centigrade.
Cooking is the best way to introduce fractions.
Why else would schools use pie graphs and pie charts?
Although pies work great, so does your set of graduated measuring cups.
Be sure to teach kitchen safety and fire safety as well.

Getting them to write.

Older children can keep diaries or journals,
but my youngest loved to tell me what to write down for him before he could print.
After a trip, I always ask "What was your favorite thing we did (or saw) today?"
This gets them started thinking and talking about the experience.
This brainstorming of memories and ideas is an essential prewriting step.
It helps the child to decide what was important about the trip,
and it helps him to organize his thoughts before writing.
You will find that your children better remember trips and experiences
about which they have talked or written because it reinforces the memories.
An older child can write for himself;
A child of any age can express his ideas in the form of a drawing.
Don't let the lack of writing skills stop your child from expressing himself.

Reading is the key.

Many libraries have summer reading programs for children.
These encourage your child to read through a system of rewards
as your child reaches defined reading goals
or through the promise of reward at the completion of the program.
Most reading programs also include planned activites at regular intervals.
Our local reading program activities include read-aloud programs,
puppet shows, guest speakers, and a visiting petting zoo (outdoors).
You can encourage your child with the promise of a special treat,
a special privilege, a family outing, or a special handmade certificate of achievement.

Remember that nothing fosters reading more
than a parent reading aloud to the child,
so don't forget to continue reading to your child
during the summer as well.

Handwriting is improved by practice.

Encourage your children to write stories.
We love to write round-robin stories.
One person begins the story and writes (or talks) for a set amount of time,
then the story passes to the next person, and so on.
Both my sons' friends love to tell these stories when at our home.