Summer Skills Maintenance

Hi, Everyone!  It's Anita from Primary "Teach"spiration.

It's so hard to believe that summer break is upon us!  For some, it has already begun, while for others 

it's just around the corner.  I know, for me, the very end of the school year has always been such an emotional time.  We've nurtured those babies for nine months plus, and they've come so far since

Day 1.  Now it's time to let them go, and as we send them forward to the next grade, we feel a

sense of pride in all they have learned.  

Yet, we know that along with summer break comes the backslide.  You know what I mean.  You're confident your kids are fully prepared for the next grade when they leave your classroom for the summer, but next year's teacher may wonder why they didn't learn this or that.  It's the summer slide!

The kids put it out of their minds for those few short summer months and forget so much.

To help parents recognize the summer slide and get some helpful tips, I developed a parent letter to send home at the end of the year.  The tips are simple:

1.  Read with your children every day or as often as possible for just a brief amount of time.  You might take trips to the library and let them find new books that interest them.  Let them read for a while, then you read for a while.  Kids really do like it when you give them that special time.

2.  Surprise them with a special notebook.  Suggest to them how much fun it might be if they keep a "diary" of their summer days.  Set aside a special time each day for them to write and share with you their thoughts of the day.  Then, without being teachery (is that a word?), ask them if they can find anything in their sentence(s) that might need fixing (capitals, periods, spelling, etc.).  Guide them to find needed revisions.  Make it fun, no pressure!  Praise for the thoughts and writing skills!

3.  To keep up the math skills, play a variety of math games; you can find many at teacherspayteachers. com.  Or, for those who enjoy coloring or if you don't have as much time, encourage them to do one of the many color-by-number math sheets.

If you would like a copy of my letter, you can download it here.

And here is a fun summer color-by-number math facts packet you can get at Teachers pay Teachers.

Have a Happy Summer!