Who's Who and Who's New: Summer

Hi, Everyone! It's Anita from Primary "Teach"spiration.

It's so hard to believe that summer break is upon us! For some, it has already begun, while for others

it's just around the corner. I know, for me, the very end of the school year has always been such an emotional time. We've nurtured those babies for nine months plus, and they've come so far since

Day 1. Now it's time to let them go, and as we send them forward to the next grade, we feel a

sense of pride in all they have learned.

Yet, we know that along with summer break comes the backslide. You know what I mean. You're confident your kids are fully prepared for the next grade when they leave your classroom for the summer, but next year's teacher may wonder why they didn't learn this or that. It's the summer slide!

The kids put it out of their minds for those few short summer months and forget so much.

To help parents recognize the summer slide and get some helpful tips, I developed a parent letter to send home at the end of the year. The tips are simple:

1. Read with your children every day or as often as possible for just a brief amount of time. You might take trips to the library and let them find new books that interest them. Let them read for a while, then you read for a while. Kids really do like it when you give them that special time.

2. Surprise them with a special notebook. Suggest to them how much fun it might be if they keep a "diary" of their summer days. Set aside a special time each day for them to write and share with you their thoughts of the day. Then, without being teachery (is that a word?), ask them if they can find anything in their sentence(s) that might need fixing (capitals, periods, spelling, etc.). Guide them to find needed revisions. Make it fun, no pressure! Praise for the thoughts and writing skills!

3. To keep up the math skills, play a variety of math games; you can find many at teacherspayteachers. com. Or, for those who enjoy coloring or if you don't have as much time, encourage them to do one of the many color-by-number math sheets.

If you would like a copy of my letter, you can download it here.

And here is a fun summer color-by-number math facts packet you can get at Teachers pay Teachers.

Have a Happy Summer!

Hi, Queen of the Jungle here. I'm so glad to be a guest blogger once again. I can't believe it is almost the end of the year for us here in our school district. In many districts across the country, this may be their last week of school. What a whirlwind this year had been.

Since we are heading into the summer, we know that many times our students experience a loss of skills during the break. I like to call this the Summer Skills Slip. They are busy enjoying vacation with family and friends and don't want to think about math or reading. Our hope as teachers is that we can get them to do some things over the summer that will help kids retain some of the skills they learn during the year.

At home, parents can do some fun activities that help support these skills. In fact, they can be done with items they find all around the house. There are many activities that support language arts, math and even science skills. To help reinforce math skills how about sharing the following activity with parents?

Paper Plate Pantry Math

Tape up paper plates next to the pantry or on the pantry door. On each paper plate, post a set of problem solving questions that your child must solve.

For Example the picture above has the following plates:

Plate #1 - Pick two cans of vegetables. Which can weighs more? How much more does it weigh than the other can?

Paper Plate #2 – Find three of your favorite items. Look at their calories. Put them in order of greatest to least calories.

Paper Plate #3 – Pick one box of cereal. How much sugar is in two servings of cereal? If you ate the cereal each morning for one week, how much fiber would you get?

Add other paper plates with questions you create about your pantry items. Change it up each week to keep it fresh and fun.

This activity and many more can be found in the product: Lazy Days of Summer Activities, Games and Puzzle Packet. This packet can help students engage their brains during the summer as they spend time with their family and friends. The packet has easy and engaging activities, games, puzzles and ideas that parents can use to help their child continue to learn and grow throughout the summer.