Tag Archives: education

Avoid the Summer Reading Slide with Book Series for Boys

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summer reading

Beat the Summer Slide

It’s the season when parents and teachers are figuring out ways to avoid the summer reading slide. During the summer, elementary-aged children, especially boys, tend to lose much of the reading aptitude that they gained during the school year. Summer reading incentive programs can help by offering prizes for titles or reading minutes logged during the summer, but there’s no substitute for the pure joy of reading.

Like TV shows that brings us back week after week to view our favorite characters or to find out what happened after the cliffhanger ending, series of books may be able to keep children reading all summer. Buy the first books of these series or check them out from the library for your children.

  • Magic Tree House series for six- to nine-year-old boys who love adventure and historical fiction.
  • The Bunnicula series for nine- to twelve-year-old boys who like harmless, campy vampire rabbits. Read a teacher’s review of Bunnicula.
  • Chronicles of Narnia. for nine- to twelve-year-old boys. Adults should read these too. Lewis wrote a lot into these books that kids enjoy but don’t completely understand.

Do you have any other ideas to help children avoid the summer slide? Post them in the comments.

MisterJeremy has lived and taught in Japan since 1997. He has taught English; homeschooled his own kids; taught in and directed an international preschool; and now teaches in and directs an international school in Tokyo. His guiding principle in education is that learning should be fun. He blogs at makelearningfun.info. You can also find him on twitter @funlearn.

Rights Of The Children

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The Convention is based on the four fundamental principles:

1. prohibition of a discrimination
2. interests of the child as a primary consideration in all actions concerning the children
3. inherent right to life
4. respect children’s rights to own opinion

That’s my new lens. For more interesting reading about children’s rights click on this link: http://www.squidoo.com/rights-of-the-child. Have nice day:)

Sneak in Some Fun Learning This Summer

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Worried about your kids spending the summer forgetting everything they learned at school? There’s a better answer than torturing them with Summer Bridge workbooks. Try these fun activities and games that promote math, language arts, and reading skills by stealth.

Practice Grammar with  Mad Libs.

Car trips or rainy days are perfect for busting out a Mad Libs booklet. Kids have a blast while practicing the parts of speech. This page has several tips for how to make the most educational use of Mad Libs for elementary, middle, and high school students. There are also links to printable Mad Libs and suggestions for publishing your own Mad Libs.

Use UNO to practice math skills.

Everyone loves UNO. You can take it to the beach or pack it along to the relatives’ house. Don’t worry about losing a card or two because, unlike a regular deck of cards, you can still play the game. Check out how to use UNO to teach math skills like greater/less than, counting, and arithmetic.

Participate in a Summer Reading Challenge.

How about free books, gift cards, outdoor goods, or even cash as motivation to read during the summer. Several nationwide summer reading programs offer prizes for kids who read. Check out this big list of summer reading programs. Your local library probably has one too.

 

What are your best ideas to keep learning happening during the summer? Please share in the comments!

MisterJeremy has lived and taught in Japan since 1997. He has taught English; homeschooled his own kids; taught in and directed an international preschool; and now teaches in and directs an international school in Tokyo. His guiding principle in education is that learning should be fun. He blogs at makelearningfun.info. You can also find him on twitter @funlearn.