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mara williams
on Jun 18 2013 - 06:00 AM
Hey, manchild, mama says: clean your room, wash the dishes, don't drink and drive.
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Emily Parnell
on Jun 16 2013 - 06:00 AM
Eating fresh, local produce is good for body and soul
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Jim Cosgrove
on Jun 13 2013 - 06:00 AM
I just want to buy some pants. Please, turn down the music.
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When I’m not convincing our toddler to stop eating the dog biscuits these days, I’m trying to convince our 12-year-old that it’s OK to keep learning in the summer.
Yeah, you guessed it. Every summer I always get the “What are you, crazy?”
In March 1996, I gave birth to a child who’s really not all that into learning. School? His favorite two days are the first day when he gets to use the new backpack and the last day when he flies out the door with a ‘see ya.’. All the days in between are just ‘have-to’ days.
So when I suggest he spend five hours a week this summer (that’s less than an hour a day, I’ve pointed out to him on many occasions) brushing up on some school work he acts as if his little brother flushed his Nintendo DS down the toilet.
He truly believes that whole part of the schoolyard saying that goes, ‘no more teachers, no more books …' I think he started envisioning football camps and long lazy days playing with friends and mastering his video games back in February.
Trouble is, that’s not how I roll (a saying he recently taught me, impressive huh?).
Gotta use what you’ve learned (or at least practice it) or you’ll lose it. Keep reading books or you’ll not want to pick them back up come late August. Now I’m not saying we’re going to home school him six hours a day and the poor guy never gets a break. Just a little extra math and regular reading.
Last year he had two workbooks (and they weren’t even thick workbooks) to finish, one in reading and one in math. Nothing major, maybe two pages a day. Except the belly aching was plenty big, we heard it nearly every day.
I’m a little more lenient this year, not because of his complaining but because of a pretty good report card. I’m going with a mix of learning-oriented summer activities and old fashioned book learning with math-oriented computer games.
On the activity side, step dad took him to see Bodies Revealed yesterday which he loved and learned at the same time. (He did come back declaring he wouldn’t ever bring children into the world, something I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of.) And for the book work, I’m headed to the store today. He talked me out of a math workbook a few days ago, saying he was sure another store would have a better one. The other store didn’t even carry them.
I’m on to him, so I’ll be going to the store alone. He can pick out the computer game.
Maybe I do go too far. Maybe summer should be all about fun and nothing else. I wanted to do a book club with his friends and he told me that was embarrassing. All I wanted to do was have kids read a book and then we’d have a theme party to discuss it. I wouldn’t have made anyone wear hats or anything.
Anybody else think it’s OK to learn in the summer? Anyone have great ideas how to make workbook pages fun?
Please tell me somebody rolls like me.
hats,that is funny. you could always call the moms of his bff and give them the book idea. Have each mom covertly suggest this really cool book they just bought for ds. Then when the boys get together to play they will find out that they are all reading the same really cool book. Then it can be there idea to get together to have a really cool book themed party. Remember the trick to get any man to do almost anything...make them think it was their idea.Even though DS is only headed to K next fall, I do summer lessons as well. I did them last summer too, but he didn't mind them. I set the timer for 15 minutes and we get through whatever we can in that time. I think it's a great idea.There are so many great websites out there that homeschoolers use that have math and science, social studies, and language arts games on them. Much better doing fun stuff on the computer!Wow Laura! Our boys are SO alike!! We also have workbooks to work on, along with book reports to help keep him into doing them! So far, it's been like "pulling teeth" to get him motivated. I think it's going to be a long summer!I still remember reading in the summer with the program at our library. If I read however many books, they put my name up on the wall. I did love to read - but that sure was great motivation for me. It seems like I read 100 books. They must have been short.DH is like you... it's a point of contention in our house. I fight him tooth and nail about letting the kids just be kids and blow off steam and ride scooters and play in sprinklers and eat bomb pops all summer long. We also go to the museums and do things that don't look like learning. And we do the reading program every summer, but they like to do that. I expect so much out of them during the school year I really think the summer is a time to de-compress. But DH is with you -- keep 'em learning and it's not so hard to go back in the fall.While we don't have a time limit yet per day, we also try to do some learning activities over the summer. What if you were to use the workbook pages as a sort of payment toward other activities? If he has a particular (non-educational) computer game he likes, maybe he can only play it when the pages are done well. That way, he either quits playing traditional video stuff and heads outside (or-gasp-reads!) or he has to do his work. But then it would be his choice, not something he has to do regardless.We always did the summer reading program at the Library, and I even read to my kids in Middle School, but then I have all girls who love to read so it wasn't hard. I also put them in camps so they weren't sitting home all the time. The Blue Valley Rec department has great options--Camp Center Stage was a fav. The Red Cedar camp in Stilwell is a great place for kids to learn about wild life. There are also computer camps here--they do fun things like computer animation. You can find out about it at http://www.youthtechinc.com/. If they are musically inclined, Opera Camp is fantastic (kcopera.org).
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