With less than a month left in the school year, many kids are already looking ahead to a summer filled with fun and excitement. While it’s great that kids get to take a break from school and enjoy summer days of running around with their friends, it’s important that they engage with the learning they’ve done through the past year of school. Many kids end up losing some of the knowledge they worked so hard for through summer break, which makes going back to school tougher to do, resulting in a month or so of struggling to get back in the swing of things. With that in mind, we’ve gathered some of the ways you can help your kid keep their mind active through the summer. When you’re looking for a fun way to beat the summer heat, bring your kiddos to Rebounderz Trampoline Park here in Edison!

-The Summer Slide

When a kid is in school, it’s basically like a full-time job, with work overflowing into their personal time when they get home. This makes it easy to understand how they can get burnt out over the course of the school year. Summer is a retreat away from long days spent in a classroom and coming home with a pile of homework that needs to be done. However, when kids make that full disconnection from education for a few months, they fall into a situation called the Summer Slide. For example, kids can lose up to two and a half months worth of math skills during summer vacation. Younger kids can lose a month or more of their spelling skills. This is why it is so important to engage your child’s education throughout these off-months.

-Summer Reading

Encourage your child to read through the summer to keep their brain active. This is a great alternative to spending long days in front of a TV screen or buried in a cell phone. Let them know this is a great opportunity for them to pursue their own interests that might not be covered in school. Take a weekly trip to your local library so they can pick their own books out. If you can come away from the library with at least one fiction and one non-fiction book, you’ll be engaging both sides of their brain. This is their chance to have a say in what they learn about, so let them know it’s ok to try reading something they aren’t that familiar with it. You never know what book might trigger thoughts of a future career!

-Creativity

Of course, it doesn’t all have to be book learning. Craft projects and other creative endeavors can have just as big an impact on your child’s brain function as reading a long book about long division. Teach them how to knit, paint, build models, put together puzzles, try photography, build or repair something… the possibilities are truly endless. Take an art class at the local community center together to make the activity a shared experience between you and your child. You can even just take a trip to the museum to show them the art on display. You’d be surprised what can get a kid’s creative gears turning.

We’re going to be taking a look at some of the other ways you can keep your child learning throughout the summer in another blog post coming next week, so keep an eye out for that. For now, we hope these ideas get you thinking about ways that you can keep your child engaged outside of school. One of the biggest things to consider through summer break is how much physical activity your child is getting. Bring them to Rebounderz Trampoline Park in Edison to get them moving around in a fun and safe way. We hope to see you soon!