This article is perfect to share with all of you. I know alot of you have already ended your school year and have started your summer vacations. We still have 2 more weeks to go here in New York. We end on June 22. But we may as well be done because they really are not getting much done at this point anyway. So enjoy this article. Also keep in mind that when traveling around you cant forget your dolls. Maybe you will need some new clothes also. If so come and visit me at
A Girls Treasure .
Enjoy the article:
Increase Your Child's Learning During the Summer
By: Rebekah Kogelschatz Increase Your Child’s Learning During the Summer
Summer time is a time of fun, relaxation, and good memories. School is out and children are ready to pack anything related to learning until the fall. Summer is about fun times and quiet schedules, but learning should not be left behind.
In a report on MSNBC.com, it was estimated by Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology at Duke University who studies summer learning loss, that nearly all children lose one month of what they learn over the school year during the summer months. All children lose some of their abilities in math, and poorer children lose some ability in reading. Children with learning disabilities could lose even more.
What is a parent to do, especially a full time working parent?
There are some easy ways for parents to help their child keep the knowledge they have learned in the past school year and maybe give them a head start for the coming year.
• If you are registering your child for summer camp, try to find a learning camp. There are many camps that offer learning along with child care, like science camps, art camps, and camps with a variety of topics. Try to find a camp that teaches over a camp that baby-sits. Programs like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club offer many programs that will help your child learn while they are being cared for.
• Read to your child. Many libraries offer free summer programs that encourage your child to read by offering classes or incentives for those that take part. But more than checking books out for your child to read, read to your child. Find an easy chapter book or a harder book those appeals to both of you and read aloud daily for 10-15 minutes. Not only will you share the experience of the story, you will be making a memory. Struggling readers learn how to read better by listening to role models. If you think you are not a good reader, think again. You are probably still a better reader than your child.
• Take good vacations. While visiting the grandparents is probably on the agenda, make sure you stop at some neat places on the way. If you are traveling out of state by car, the best places to stop are the rest stops and welcome stations. The welcome stations coming into each state are full of information. They also offer free maps and pamphlets for tourist destinations. Use this opportunity to learn map skills by finding the distance to different cities or different attractions. At the rest stop, find different kinds of plants and trees. Stop and have a picnic. Try not to make the trip in one straight shot. Take an extra hour and enjoy the view. Find zoos, parks, or aquariums along the way. The kids won’t even know they are learning.
• Use creative math. As the research shows, most children forget math skills over the summer. Teachers spend an average of two weeks reviewing math skills. Not to mention, many of the later chapters of the math book, including fractions, time, geometry, and measurement are hardly taught during the normal school year. Find ways to teach math without worksheets. Worksheets will scare any child away, so teach them math so they do not know you are teaching it. Have them find coupons and help with the grocery shopping. Give them an allowance and have them save a portion, spend a portion, and give away a portion. Cook with your child and use fractions to mix the recipes. All of these areas are mathematically related without sitting your child down at the kitchen table with worksheets.
• Limit the television and video games. So many children that stay home alone during the summer spend the day watching television or playing video games. Partially, this is for safety reasons: you cannot let your child roam the neighborhood while you are at work. The goal is to limit the amount they are watching or playing. While this is hard to moderate if you are at work, try encouraging you child to play outside, read a book, or do some chores. Since you cannot watch them while you are away, try to build an incentive into the request- give an allowance, provide a reward when they finish a book, give them time on the computer when you are at home. If they are keeping out of trouble, any time not spent watching TV or video games will help them out since they will be doing other things.
Try your best to keep your child’s mind active over the long three months of summer. Most child get bored of just sitting around, so give them suggestions for fun things to do or find things for them to do. It will help out the child in the fall, and help you out during the summer to have a child that is not tired of the everyday and complaining he has nothing to do.
Article by:
Rebekah Kogelschatz is a former school teacher of students with disabilities. She has taught all grades from pre-school to 8th grade in all subject areas. She is a stay at home with her two children in rural Florida. She is a co-founder of the site SmartMoms-SmartBusiness and the founder of a parenting resource site Heartland-Moms.
It did not take us long before we "upgraded" to our first American Girl doll. Her first doll was Samantha and she took such good care of that doll. As she was busy mothering her dolls I was busy buying clothes and shoes and all kinds of adorable things that I just could not resist. I really found alot of great items on ebay and that is how my business began. With the thought of "Hey, if they can do this, why can't I" So I spent endless hours on the computer investigating until I was ready to open my ebay business. That is how A Girls Treasure 
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