End of School Year, Yay!??

Well it has finally happened, we have reached the end of the school year. It has to be equivalent to Christmas with how busy everyone is. For those little ones is it Kindergarten or Preschool graduation with their creative celebrations and excited parents. For the other elementary students it is field trips, field/sports day, festivals and fairs. They clean out their desks and bring home every art project they created over the year. Middle School/Jr. High have their own celebrations, some do a type of graduation and may have field days, but this is also the time for end of the year exams and final projects. They get to clean out their lockers and bring home all the assignments they failed to hand in because they couldn’t find it. High School has more of the crunch of final exams and final projects and award ceremonies for those graduating. There is the senior prom, senior breakfast, senior skip day and all those other things that make being a senior sound so fun.

But with all this craziness as the end of the year closing off, it is also a time for students to feel anxiety. How will they do on their exams? What will the teacher think of the final project? What will my parent think of my report card? What am I going to do this summer? My mother use to always say the first week of summer and the last week of summer are always the hardest. Kids can’t seem to figure out what to do with the transition. The first week school is out kids definitely don’t want to think about anything school related like; reading, writing, or arithmetic. And when they head back to school they start to worry about reading, writing and arithmetic… “I forgot to read the assigned books over the summer.” “I forgot to write up a book report.” “I didn’t do any math over the summer.” And a new anxiety about starting school comes into play.

I know as a parent my biggest challenge is making sure my kids are active over the summer, both physically and mentally. I don’t like seeing them spend hours laying on the couch watching that particular episode of Sponge Bob for the umpteenth time. I don’t want to see them endlessly chatting with friends on Facebook or playing video games with wrappers and plates and old food strewed all around them. So what can we do?

Here are a few suggestions that I have but I would love to hear any suggestions that you may have.

• Select a summer book that you all read together and have a tea party to discuss. If boys don’t like the idea of a tea party have it as a tailgate party.
• Get board games like Blokus, Life, Hidden Island, Monopoly, Ticket to Ride; any game that takes some time to play that your family can do together in the evening.
• Figure out the rotation of a bike tire, create a hot air balloon out of tissue paper of plastic sacks, and look into other science projects. Do them once a week and record results.
• Purchase a deck of cards and use them instead of flashcards to keep your math facts sharp.

Most importantly enjoy your summer and don’t waste it in front of a screen.

Enjoy Math!