Summer Transition  

It is June, and if your student hasn’t ended school for the summer they will be doing so shortly.  Congratulations!  You made it through another year.  Some students are graduating and will be facing larger transitions, but school to summer is a transition for everyone, you too. 

It can be stressful to have your kids around more.  Schedules can become more complicated and friction can increase simply because of spending more time together.  Parents and other caretakers need to remember to take care of themselves during summer months as well as provide things for their children to do.  A little self care will help you appreciate your children and enjoy the summer more.

Three months is a long time and children can get out of the habit of learning.  Try to keep them exposed to things that will challenge them to think differently and keep their most important learning skills sharp. 

Reading is key to any learning and summer can be a great time to encourage new reading experiences.  Encourage kids to read things they enjoy and help them find things that might be interesting to them.  Kids who enjoy food or cooking might find exploring a cookbook to be of interest to them.  That lovely new genre of graphic novels (read, comic books) might be a good thing to bring some reading to children who generally don’t like it.  As always, what you model makes a big difference.  If you show a great deal of interest in reading that summer novel, it might inspire more reading interest in your kids.

Vacation and trips also provide opportunities for learning.  Have your kids use an old fashioned map to keep track of where you go on a road trip, and maybe even help you navigate.  It will help with reading and spatial skills, including figuring out how to fold the map back up after they use it.  Post cards are another potential vacation learning opportunity.  Debbi was recently surprised when a fourth grade student told her he had never seen a post card.  Encourage your children to write and send postcards to family and friends back home and let them know how vacation is going.  An online service, simplypostcards.net, will make and send postcards of pictures that you or your kids have taken yourselves.

Whatever you do, have a safe and fun summer.