Welcome!

Many parents spend the summer sending their child to camp or letting them do sports or other activities. Research has shown that disregarding academics for ten or more weeks can be detrimental to your child's learning. This is even more the case when it comes to children in those special elementary years where the foundations are being laid for so many subjects. Your 2nd or 3rd grader may have learned all of their times tables and math facts in school and with those 10 weeks off and no practice they can lose their ability. The same applies to those formative years in reading and so on--it is true--if you don't use it you will lose it!

As a parent I know it can be expensive to send your child to an academic program for the summer. Even when you do send your child they are there with many other children and may not get the attention or practice they need. So what can you do?

I am going to be working at home with my rising 3rd grade son, We will do activities almost every day to promote learning and prepare for the third grade. He is advanced in almost all subjects so we will be doing a lot of 4th and 5th grade work. The only place I can see us actually sticking to the standards for 3rd grade is in Social Studies-we will be incorporating a lot of government and economics to supplement US history. Although we live in GA we will follow the National Core Curriculum standards to base our work and also the IB curriculum for PYP.

I will be posting and blogging about our activities here on this site. I, like many parents, am on a serious budget so our activities will be low or no cost. I will include variations for grades 3-5 so you can do what is developmentally appropriate for your child.

I will include links to online games and clear descriptions of what you can do at home to promote learning and to help develop a love of learning in your child this summer. Please go to the link below and subscribe to this blog now. The posts will start during the second week of May but don't wait until then to subscribe to get updates!

As always I love to get feedback. Please comment with questions and let me know what worked and what didn't work for you when you did an activity with your child.  Also, let me know great sites and activities you have found so I can share them with all readers.

Thanks in advance for subscribing and I hope you are getting ready for a great summer break!