Brain Power

Don't let your kids forget all they have learned this school year over summer break.  Since both hubby and I work outside of the home, little man will go to a sports camp everyday over his summer vacation.  But just because he is on "vacation" doesnt mean that his brain doesnt need to get a workout as well.  In addition to maintaining his tutoring schedule we plan to implement "school" at home.

How can we prevent kids from forgetting everything they were taught, CREATE A SKILLS REINFORCEMENT KIT that targets math, reading, writing, and spelling.

Math Practice

I am going to have little man practice addition/subtraction facts three times a week for ten minutes. To make this fun he will be able to choose a variety of ways to practice including using dice, cards, manipulatives, flashcards or worksheets to practice with.  I also found these games at Confessions of a Homeschooler that I think will be lots of fun.

Spelling Practice

Assign students to practice spelling words three times a week for ten minutes each. Child may write his words, use letter beads, letter tiles, magnets etc. A good resource for spelling words is the Dolch list which includes "service words" (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs) which cannot be learned through the use of pictures.

Journal Writing

I really think writing is important so I am going to encourage little man to free write at least one paragraph three times weekly in his notebook and illustrate each piece after he's written. I hope to expand his writing topics and will provide him with the occassional writing prompt.  I found this notebook at Target which has lines at the bottom and a blank space for illustrations.

Reading

Little man will read for ten minutes three times a week at least, and we will continue with our nighttime routine of reading a story to him.  I also printed off this hundred's board to track the number of books that he reads.  I'm thinking that after reading 10 books he can earn a reward maybe a trip to Ritas for an icee or a trip to the dollar store.

Heres a list of suggested items to have on hand for your reinforcement kit

• domininos
• deck of cards
• letter tiles or beads
• flashcards
• box of crayons, colored pencils or markers
• Magnetic Poetry words or word stickers or cards (write a variety of words on pieces of index cards or plain stickers)
• books at reading level
• printable math worksheets or workbooks at child's academic level
• printable spelling word lists

I dont know if I ever shared with you all but I use to be a teacher.  I absolutely loved teaching 3rd grade, but its a hard job that doesn't pay well at all in my state so I decided to transition to higer education which pays much more but I am definitely not as passionate about it as I was teaching the little people.  I honestly still get a thrill out of going in teacher supply stores and I stalk homeschool blogs all the time because I secretly would love to homeschool at least through the elementary years. 

Do any of you homeschool? 

Whats your plan to keep your kids brain powered up over the summer?