Poll: Do Your Kids Do School Work During the Summer to Keep Up?

I have a son who has just finished first grade and a daughter who just finished preK. My son has to read for 15 minutes a day and it can be to his sister, to me or just by himself. He also has to do some math flashcards and practice writing. All told it is about 30 minutes a day. My daughter has to practice her letter sounds (through computer, being read to or watching a leapfrog video), practice her writing and her numbers every day....around 20 minutes a day. I've even got my 3 year old practicing letters. It isn't regimented or anything and they have say so over what they are doing as long as they are doing it....and they have a progress chart that they will get rewarded for at the end of the summer as well. Being a teacher myself I can tell you kids fall behind in the summer and I think it is good for them to have a little practice throughout. Be flexible and let them have fun with it but still do it! Find a fun book series for him to get into....mine loves Magic Treehouse and he loves it when I read Harry Potter to him as a break.
Good luck!

Ignore the snide comments. In the grand scheme of the summer, 30 mins per day is nothing. Go Mama!

p.s. My son asked for a 2nd grade math workbook for the summer and we read books all summer, so you're not alone!

Both my kids will be in summer programs this year. I like to keep the routine going and its easier for them to get back into the learning environment in the fall. They will have the month of august without summer classes.
Also, we take trips that I consider educational.

We never bothered with actual school work during the summer per se. There are a few web sites with math games he likes, and he reads all the time anyway so I never have to force him to sit down with a book. His favorite treat for good behavior is a trip to the book store. He'll be starting 6th grade in the fall, he's got straight A's in every grade since kindergarten and according to the tests he's taken, he reads at a 12th grade level. The secret to keeping them learning is making it fun so they don't realize what they are doing is work.

YES!!!! I have a son (just turned 8 and will be going in 3rd grade) and a daughter (almost 6 who will start 1st grade). They both read for 1hr everyday. We do actual work book pages 3-4 times a week. We have other quiet time everyday when they can do puzzles, arts and crafts, legos and they have a couple of different science kits - one with experiments and one with circuits. I work at home anywhere from 3-6 hours a day. During this time, they are allowed 1 hr on the computer or Wii, 1 hour of reading, 1 hour of "quiet play" then they can watch tv. If we go to the zoo for example, then later in the day, they draw pictures and write about what we did. I try to make summer learning flexible and fun, but we most definetly keep up with work. I am completly amazed that some parents don't make their kids do anything in the summer????? Our children's education is OUR JOB, not just the schools.

Well it looks like you got a lot of positive thoughts and feedback!

Our daughter will be a sophomore next year and has had "summer packets" AND a LIST of books to read since first grade! They go to a private school and this is something the school does but we support and follow through with at home! Granted now that she's in high school the summer reading list is 2 books instead of the 20+ children's books when she was younger. And even last year, as a 9th grader she took Honors Algebra 2 but had a summer packet of problems to keep her brain thinking.

I agree that kids need to be kids, but there is a lot of research out now that we do lose it if we don't use it!

We homeschool, and school year round. In the summer we do 3 weeks on, 1 week off.

Yes, I always do that for my daughter who just finished 2nd grade, during the summer break.
It is a daily routine.
I have workbooks, books, things on the computer, her keeping a "dairy" of just whatever she wants to write, etc.
For my girl, math is the one we have to reinforce more... because she 'forgets' things, if not kept up.

We do school year round for homeschool. Our summer load this year is a lot harder so 30 minutes is nothing. I think this is a great idea and even if my kids went to school, I'd do school during the summer. Just that little bit will help him so much when school starts. You're a smart mom and I'd let those comments go in one ear and out the other. Keep encouraging him and be cheerful about it and your son will soon forget what everyone is saying. Good luck and have a great summer!

My kids are going into 2nd and 5th. I have flash cards of sight words that I use for the 7 yo and multiplication flash cards for the 10 yo. That's about all we do. Oh, and they both read every day. I think it depends on the kids. I like to keep to the same schedule as school so they have a snack in the afternoon, then some "homework" then playing and dinner. They don't stay up later in the summer either, even tho they think they should be able too!

You are right!!!!

Reading allow takes up a lot of time. There is a big learn curve between 1 and 2 grade. In last fall in my daughter's 2nd class, some kids didn't read, when one read 200 wpm. (end of year bench mark 90-100). You know that kid was doing homework during the summer.

Book reports are great! Look at tinygreenmom.com & search summer reading for Creating Easy Summer Book Projects.

We travel alot during the summer so on our travels he is allowed to be on 'vacation' from any work, although he does like to read and usually ends up reading if we are traveling by car. The rest of the summer I do ask him to read each day.

I think having your son sit down for 30 minutes a day to do "school work" is a GREAT idea. Not only does it help him to retain what he learned this past year, it gives him great study habits.

My daughter is 4 1/2 and I have her sit down each day for 15 minutes and do some sort of workbook. She loves it and is usually happy to sit there for much longer!

My mom is a teacher and I'll never forget her telling me about two siblings who had done school work since they were little. Each night their dad had them sit down at a desk and do homework. At first he made up the homework or gave them workbooks. When they got into school they sat down every night. If they didn't have homework he assigned it. If the school work didn't take as long as the alloted time he handed them a book. My mom said they were the best, well organized, focused kids she had. Oh they were also happy and very close with their dad! They sat down for 45 minutes in elementary school, 1 1/2 hours in mid school and 2 hours in high school. Both were also exceptional atheletes.

My daughter and I will be reading several of the books on her class list this summer. We will discuss them like a book club. Also, we will be strengthening her math skills.

She is just finishing up with second grade, and her teacher recommends really focusing on math facts, most multiplication in order to be prepared for third grade so that will be my priority.

My son will be entering junior high. He is the harder one to motivate. We have decided together that reading three books will be his goal. His math skills are fine, but when he faltered during the school year I did enroll him in a math class.

I think that the break is a great time to strengthen learning. Maybe since your son is discouraged you should switch to science field trips. You could identify birds and plants in the park, or learn about zoo animals and then take a trip to the local zoo and see what you can remember.

Happy summer.

Just read your question - sorry for the late reply. My child does a Vacation Station book. It only takes her only 10 -20 minutes daily but it reinforces what she learned during her school year and has her ready for her new class. I also ask her to read 30-60 minutes daily with week-ends off.

No way, that is a GREAT idea!! My 6 year old niece just ended kindergarten, and she was much more advanced than kids in her class. She keeps asking me to take her to the library and teach her things she'd learn in 1st and 2nd grade. My parents always made me do school work during the summer, and you know what? I graduated a whole year early! I think it really pays to do it!!

Good for you and your son! I would thumb your nose at your family and dad :) My kids do school work in the summer, anywhere between 30 mins and 1.5 hrs depending on the kid and the work itself. My kids like it (they all love workbooks for some reason) and I tend to look for "fun" stuff like maps/legends work, or something that they really care about.

Hopefully you can get him excited about it again, it is just as important to keep kids bodies AND minds active over the summer :) If you have a way to contact his teacher last year, maybe she could write him a note saying how proud he/she is of your son and see if that gets him in the mood again.

Good luck!

As an educator, I think what you are doing is wonderful. Even though I don't physically have to go to my office during the summer, it is not purely vacation fun time. In order to be effective in the classroom during the academic year I have to read text books during the summer, prepare lesson plans, work on classroom activities, technology integration, etc. Not to mention my own personal research required for career advancement. Learning and educational growth should be a lifestyle not simply an means to an end (ie just to get a grade and/or job). Although your summer activities don't have to always mimic structured "school time" as many others have stated, I think it is important that your child understands that education is an integral part of life not just something one does aug-june in a classroom.

We do school work all year round. I lighten their load some in the summer, but I don't want them to get out of the routine.

First of all its hard not to listen and not be effected in some way by people advice.
Second Yes I have done school work with my oldest son the past three summers and this summer will be the fourth. I was also be starting some work for my soon to be first grader.
I usually go over to Borders and get a workbook for the grade they are going into. Plus I also make them write in their journal every day. My oldest HATES writing in his journal..its his least favorite school activity. Thats part of the reason he has to do it.
School stops here on June 24th (Thursday) the following Monday I will start them doing school work. Somewhere between 30-50 min a day.
It is so competive in schools now I want to give my children as much of an advantage as possible.

Every summer since my son was in Kindergarten, I've had them do academic work during the summer. I usually get one of those transition workbooks at the bookstore (this year I got the "Summer Bridge Activities" books for 2nd-3rd, 3rd-4th and 6th-7th). Then every single weekday, I spend 1hr with each child working on the workbooks for 1/2 hr, then reading for 1/2hr, first thing in the morning. One tiny, measly little hour per day is not too much to ask of them, I think. And the entire rest of the day is free (unless they're in camp or something, then we work in the afternoons). Ask any teacher, the first month of school is all review because of all the stuff kids have forgotten over the summer. If you have the time and your child is ASKING for work, why would you even consider not doing it? Tell those other people to back off - do they really want him to NOT exercise his brain during the summer? Is that REALLY in his best interest? So, NO, you're NOT the only parent who does this. And your son will thank you for it when he starts school in the fall again and he's not behind like some of his classmates. Plus, he gets one on one time with you - all kids love "playing school" with Mom!

When my children were younger I would have them do some work over the summer. The teachers would often send home "required" summer work packet mostly math. It took my girls less tha 45 minutes to complete the entire packet.

Our school system as well as our state encourages kids to read over the summer. The state has a "Governor's Reading Challenge" with a list of 25 lines to record your books, and a page for a mini book report. If the kids complete it (reading 4 books) they get a prize when they return to school. I think it's a great program.

So my suggestion is read, read, read and visit the library regularly.

I either had my kids in summer school or had them do home projects at home. They didn't need summer school because of low grades, I just liked them being in the learning environment.
There is so much we can teach our kids without them even realizing it.
Reading a book and doing a report.
Finding bugs and looking up research on them.
I used to give my kids a list of words to look up in the dictionary and tell me what they mean. They have amazing vocabularies.
I was never a slave driver, but if they asked me what something meant, I told them to look it up. In a book...not on the computer.

If we needed to look up a phone number, I had them find it in the phone book. Little things like referencing in day to day life is learning!

You don't have to be so structured that your kid burns out...but if my kids asked why it was windy, I had them look up weather patterns and things like that.

I taught my kids that there is something to learn in every single thing that we do and they never thought of it as "tasks". My kids learned at home an awful lot and giving them things to keep them interested in learning is a wonderful thing. Summer is a time for fun, but it doesn't mean learning stops. I always gave my kids projects or book reports or we went to the library every week and they talked to me about the books they read so we worked on retention.
We made it fun so they never thought a thing of it as far as being a chore.

I think you're doing great!
Keep it up!

Best wishes!

my kids get plenty of homework for summer through their school, book reports, math problems, list of books to read etc.
on top of that i plan on going through the whole thing they learned in school this past year and up the amount of homework to get them ready for first grade.

We are huge readers and so we keep up with that. We are just starting Island of the Blue Dolphin and hope to work through a dozen books before Labor Day.

We also get a few school workbooks (Target or Barnes and Noble...whatever) and they use them in the car or on summer vacation.

But the rest of the stuff we do is physical learning which I think engages my boys more than desk-bound learning. I have a slightly modified work schedule during the summer and so every week we plan and outing. As simple as going to a new park, swimming, museum, assembling a new toy/kit, whatever. We always come up with questions during our outings and invariably hit Google when we get home and find the answers.

My son just finished kindergarten and is a very good student, but I still read with him everyday. We, also, practice writing letters and numbers, do some simple science experiments we find in magazines, and practice addition and subtraction facts orally. We don't have a schedule. I just pick something for him when he seems to have nothing else to do. I don't think there is anything wrong with learning all the time and practicing what you've learned. I wouldn't call it school work. I would,also, make it child led in the summer months since during the school year it is all teacher led learning. My son loves dinosaurs, so those are the types of books we check out at the library.

I always read and did learning activities during the summer because they were fun! It was not homework. Everyone should be lifetime learners. As a matter of fact, look at us now!

I'm so sorry that people are interfering. As a teacher I know that when kids don't do anything over the summer, it's disastrous. I looked at the reading scores in 3rd grade and compared them to the ones in 4th grade. One boy went to summer school and his score improved. I could tell those who did not read. It took until February or March for them to regain everything that they had lost. After that, they could finally start making progress. If your ex and others realized how much students digress (it wouldn't be so bad if they just stayed in the same place), they would not give you a hard time.

Yes, we do work in the summer. I put together notebooks for my kids and every day they do "seat work". Then they read for 30 minutes. It's about an hour a day, and they grumble, but I won't back down on it.

I also keep a sticker chart for them. After they are done with their seat work, they can put a sticker on and when the chart fills up, they can get a prize like a trip to DQ or something small from Target.

I hope you are able to get your son turned around and excited about learning again. (Couldn't ya just smak people for what they say sometimes?! :))

Just a follow-up to your follow-up. If you want to improve his handwriting, practice is not always the most effective model, because kids sometimes make the same mistakes and learn those mistakes fully. You can help him improve his fine-motor skills with a caligraphy set (bookstore type is inexpensive), gel marker art, drawing materials, even paints. Those materials are not so much about right and wrong, but they allow multiple opportunities to practice the same motor movements his hands need to fully develop.