It's something we've done since Cuddlebug and Bearhug were in preschool. It helps maintain structure during the summer, and also helps keep them on track academically. We can expose them to topics in the summer that we know they'll be working on in the next grade. Then it's at least somewhat familiar when they come to it again in school, which helps their confidence and offsets some of the impact of needing to take sensory breaks and such during the school day. It's also a chance to teach them things that the school curriculum may not cover, or may touch on but not go in depth (such as history or science topics).
We're taking a more relaxed approach this summer since they only have a little over two months before school starts back in early August. They work so hard during the school year, we want them to be able to enjoy some free time while they have the chance. :)
Topics for this summer for Cuddlebug and Bearhug include:
* Reading - reading comprehension, with a range of fiction and non-fiction
* History - Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence
* Math - more advanced practice with fractions, division, etc.
* Writing - they are full of ideas, but we will work on organizing their writing
* Science - TBD
They like to read so that part should be easy :). I'll be helping with the writing part, because although dh is a gifted teacher, writing is not his thing. I'll try to help with the rest as I can, but realistically it will mostly be dh as he's the one home during the day.
For Bitty, we still have a lot of the Kindergarten workbooks and materials from a few years ago that he can use. Our main focus will be to work on his hand strength and fine motor control for writing and drawing, as well as basic math concepts. He reads all the time so there's no need to set aside "school" time for that :).
I'll keep you posted on how it goes...
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