Summer Learning
We always look forward to summer at our house! We pretty much drop all formal sit-down schooling, except for reading and math. But that doesn’t mean that the learning stops! It just means that we spend more time focusing on fun ways to learn.
Sometimes we have taken summer art classes at local shops. Other times we have focused on learning new sports, like tennis or basketball.
We’ve spent many summers watching documentaries about science, history, or politics. Alongside fun, silly movies of course.
[Fun Grammar Freebie below!]
Summer Learning
We always look forward to summer at our house! We pretty much drop all formal sit-down schooling, except for reading and math. But that doesn’t mean that the learning stops! It just means that we spend more time focusing on fun ways to learn.
Sometimes we have taken summer art classes at local shops. Other times we have focused on learning new sports, like tennis or basketball.
We’ve spent many summers watching documentaries about science, history, or politics. Alongside fun, silly movies of course.
Fun summer learning in our homeschool is a lot more loose and a lot more independent of the four-year history cycle or our science books. It’s music, art, dance, or swim lessons. Learning that’s done for the sake of learning, and is often disconnected from “typical” year-end goals.
But I have always enjoyed fun activities (for me and my kids) that include words.
Board Games
Word-based board games like Bananagrams, Scrabble, and Big Boggle. These are games that the whole family can play. They improve spelling and vocabulary. (Use the internet when necessary, lol.) Kids and adults alike enjoy these games, and the fun activities help bring the whole family together. They also teach strategy and help with improved communication skills.
When children are involved in playing board games, not just word-based games, more often than not the games result in humorous, laugh-out-loud memories that last a lifetime. These fun activities help bring a family closer together while teaching kids how to interact when in a group. It’s a side benefit, but it’s a great benefit. Board games are a staple in our home, and when in college my children spend a lot of free time developing life-long friendships while bonding with friends over board games.
Puzzle Books
Another fun summer activity for children of all ages involves playing puzzles. Puzzle books are sometimes called activity books. These puzzle books include wordsearches, sudoku puzzles, coloring pages, connect the dot pictures, and crossword puzzles. There are variations of these books which are appropriate for different age levels. They are wonderful ways to pass time during the summer. Working through some of these puzzles helps kids (and adults) build critical thinking skills and logic skills. And being able to tackle hard problems that don’t include the typical risks associated with struggling at math or some difficult lesson gives students a safe environment to struggle without being overwhelmed or embarrassed by the possibility of failing. Hard, but fun, puzzles help children to develop the internal discipline to work through difficult tasks.
Some of my favorite activities with my family involve playing board games and word puzzles.
Below is a fun freebie that you can give to your students during the summer or any time you want them to have a little fun with word games. This is a fun word game that teaches grammar while children make up wacky stories by changing the nouns and other parts of speech in an Aesop fable.
Have fun with this cute activity. Fun with Fables gives elementary students (and older kids who want to giggle) a super fun way to play with words as they add parts of speech to an Aesop Fable.
They’ll love it!
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
The post Making Summer Fun Educational! (Includes Activity Page Freebie!) appeared first on Brookdale House.