In a recent previous post, I spoke about ending the school year after a period of review and testing. I also mentioned that there have been years when we have not ended the school year and instead slipped into what we call “summer mode homeschooling.
During summer mode homeschooling, we focus solely on areas where the children need extra help. This may be spelling, multiplication tables, word problems, or reading comprehension. This extra help comes in the form of a daily worksheet, or 15-minute lesson. Some materials I have used to help my children over the summer has been Headsprout reading program, (my kids were still in schools at this points) Funbrain.com for daily math drills, and building spelling skills workbooks. We have also found Iquest very helpful in helping to get children up to speed. These are great tools to bring on summer vacations.
In addition to the areas where the children need extra help, he have daily reading requirements just like every other child on the face of the earth should have. Whether we do “summer mode homeschooling” or not, we never lift this requirement. We feel that children should spend an hour or two a day year round involved in some kind of academic exercise. After all studies have shown that children do not retain a lot what they have learned from year to year. Most of that information is lost over the summer break. We feel that if the children don’t use it (things they learned the previous year), they will certainly lose it.
But don’t the children balk, you might ask? Not really. I don’t make it an unpleasant thing, or announce that they have “failed” and therefore must go to “summer school”. Summer mode homeschooling is not a punishment and the children don’t see it that way. I simply say to the child, your test score shows that we need to do a little more work in this area, we are going to do a worksheet, or online drill, etc, a day this summer. That is really all there is to it.
*Have a question about homeschooling? Just ask.
*Want to know more about homeschooling? Start with the 2006 homeschool blog in review!