Summer Brain Drain

There was a few years ago that I started hearing about how children lose a part of what they learned during the school year over the summer.  At the time I thought this was a whole lot of garbage.  When I was in school the first few weeks in school were always boring as we went over things we had gone over the year before.  I never really lost learning over the summer so I thought that this was the way it had to be with everyone else.

So this is where I had to step aside and remember, my childhood wasn't like everyone else's.  My parents were teachers so my summer was always filled with reading and other learning activities.  The library was a favorite place to go and then we were always doing some kind of craft or simple and math drills.  This was a normal part of life for me.  As a result my brain stayed engaged over the summer and I didn't suffer from summer brain drain.

Summer can still be a very fun time even when you are doing learning activities.  It doesn't take hours a day of learning activities to prevent that summer brain drain.  All it takes is setting aside regular reading time daily.  Every library has a summer reading program that is free and offers incentives for children who read.  20 minutes a day is all that you need to keep their reading skills current.

Having your kids keep a journal of their summer activities will help them with and beginning of year "what did you do over the summer?"  assignments as well as keep their writing and thinking skills up to date.  Many libraries have entertainment programs where there is some kind of stem presentation and activities.

If you look around you can find many free but fun summer learning activities that you can have your child participate in. Even having your child help you bake can help with math.  Taking 20 minutes to read and 20 minutes to do work out of a summer bridge workbook along with some fun learning activities is all that it will take to prevent summer brain drain from happening to your child.