Sylvan of Woodridge Newsletter

Where Learning is Personal!

   July 2013

Don't Stop Learning This Summer       

Summer's here. It's time for different schedules and routines, a time to be away from school. But it's not an excuse to put your kid's brain on hiatus. Summer's for a different kind of learning.

Routines: Plan a summer routine with your child. Routines give kids structure, which they need, no matter how much they say otherwise.

Organization: Make sure your child keeps some sort of planner, electronic or written, to help her keep track of her various activities during summer months. Look at this calendar daily with your kids.

Be active: Limit your children's "screen time," the hours spent in front of any kind or size of screen - TV, video games, cell phones during summer months. There's nothing wrong with any of these, but, let's face it, we can all tell when kids are over-indulging. Spend some family time playing games, both indoor and outdoor games.

Set goals for summer together: With your children, decide what goals will be important in the coming school year. (For some kids, day-to-day goals make sense.) Decide together appropriate rewards. And consequences.

Trip to the Museum: Plan a visit to the local museum with friends and family. Before you go, request a brochure or activity sheet that is used for school groups (you also might be able to get this from your child's school). You can even spice it up and reward a good grade with a trip to the ice cream store or the mall. If it's too hot to leave your house, try a "virtual" museum field trip of the world's museums, complete with interactive, 3-D presentations and lesson suggestions for teachers. Go to the Louvre today, the British Museum next week, the Art Institute of Chicago or the Smithsonian the following week.

Summer Reading and Writing: Writing a summer book report helps your child keep his reading and writing skills current. Plus, it is a wonderful way for your child to share his opinions. Go to www.bookadventure.com for cool reading ideas, and then write about the books and stories you've read together.

Summer 2013 Online Family Journal: Collect interesting, amusing, thought-provoking summer pictures from magazines, the Internet, or your own family albums. "Prompt" your children with ideas about writing. Keep a personal or family "summer things I notice" journal. Every once in a while, everyone in the family contributes a short piece of descriptive writing, a drawing, a favorite poem or an original one, favorite memories, interesting observations, etc. Watch the journal grow.

Math Activities: Because children lose more math skills than anything else over the summer, try to do some special planning to find math-related activities. We use math in our every day life. During a trip to the grocery store, try counting, and estimating exercises. Help your child brush up on his math skills in the summer months.

Words are the building blocks of language. The more words we have at our disposal, the better we are at expressing our thoughts, ideas, feelings, and beliefs. The more confident we become in school and work. The more we understand.

Keep reading. Reading opens up many doors - imagination, curiosity, discovery, knowledge, maturity, confidence - so you want to indulge your child's natural interest in new things. As you read together, stop occasionally to explain unfamiliar words or to help him figure out their meaning by their context, by accompanying pictures, by their roots, or by their prefixes, or suffixes. Talk a little bit about the words. No lessons, just parent-child conversation.

Reward often. When she correctly uses a word you've discussed or read together, reward her with praise. Kids love to be successful and feel accomplished. Just like us.

Create word lists. Make lists of words you've learned together during the summer. Write them in your summer journal, make a "chain" of words out of construction paper and drape them around the room. Or create a "word wall" that shows how much you've learned. Make flashcards - good, old-fashioned, low-tech flashcards - of these new words and have "word sprints" to see how many he can remember in a one-minute period.

Make the dictionary your friend. Develop this habit - it's like getting two words for the price of one! It's also a good way to reinforce alphabetizing. Eventually "graduate" to the Thesaurus.

Use the words. Now that you've learned new words with your child, use them often to reinforce their meanings and develop comfort and fluency. Pronounce them, explain them when necessary, and give examples of how the word can be used.

Talk often. Conversation is the best way to learn any language, so make plenty of time to share talks with your child about just about any subject. Summer is full of fun topics like play, travel, the beach, sports, vacations, favorite family stories, memories of relatives, your own summers . . . You get the picture.

Play. Have fun with words. Play word games, do crossword puzzles and word searches, compete in low-stress family spelling bees. Get a laugh out of tongue twisters.

Create themes. Make up summer word themes for new vocabulary. Concentrate on baseball, say, or Olympic swimming, sand-castle-building or favorite hobbies. Learn as many new words about the theme as possible.

Remember our Free ACT practice test scheduled for August 10th, held at Woodridge Public Library from 1-5pm.  Please call our center at 630-968-8474 to reserve your spot, or call the Library and ask for Beth at 630-964-7899.  Call now and reserve your spot!