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I just finished mid year conferences for my girls K and 1st this morning. I need a little help solidifying plans for this summer.

 

DD in 1st seems to be struggling with writing at her ability level. I'm thinking it might have something to do with fine motor skill development. Her teacher mentioned that too. Her handwriting needs work, and I'm thinking about getting HWT to help with the handwriting. I'm also thinking about AAS to help her with her spelling, which is another area of weakness. I think I'm also going to do a lot more reading and pushing her in her reading. I will be working hard on comprehension and perhaps finish the Spectrum book for comprehension we have and move to the next level. Math we will continue to use what we have Singapore and Mathematical Reasoning. I'm going to have DD write everyday in a notebook using prompts and Story Cubes.

 

DD in K, I'm going to do a lot of reading an try to push up her reading level. We'll work on ETC workbooks. I'm going to have her write with the notebook as well. I think we are going to keep working through Miquon Math and maybe some Singapore.

 

We will do some science projects, SOTW projects, and lots of badge work over the summer for AHG.

 

Any ideas or suggestions would be great.

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I just finished mid year conferences for my girls K and 1st this morning. I need a little help solidifying plans for this summer.

 

I think I'm also going to do a lot more reading and pushing her in her reading. Snip.

 

DD in K, I'm going to do a lot of reading an try to push up her reading level. We'll work on ETC workbooks. I'm going to have her write with the notebook as well. I think we are going to keep working through Miquon Math and maybe some Singapore.

 

We will do some science projects, SOTW projects, and lots of badge work over the summer for AHG.

 

Any ideas or suggestions would be great.

 

Reading aloud and conversing with are good ways to develop vocab and comprehension. Also add in the running oral story...make up a character, have it do something, then the next person adds to the story. And so on until everyone has contributed. Resume the next day.

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For the future, consider the pen pal program for AHG.  I know it's too late to sign up for this year, but writing letters is a good way to get them to work on handwriting, spelling, and grammar.  Perhaps she could write letters to relatives or invites to a party ....

 

You might also consider non-academic activities that provide exercise for the finger muscles.  Things involving clothespins and similar, putting together puzzles and legos, etc.  Also drawing and maybe needle crafts.

 

Nowadays, neat physical handwriting isn't such a big deal since we eventually type.  So you might consider getting her started with typing in order to practice spelling / grammar without worrying about the physical difficulty.

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  • 1 month later...

Is it so important for you your child to have a good reading and writing skills, or a strong health, for example. Maybe, it will be better to ride a bike?))

 

I think a balanced approach is both/and - if you don't have them in daycamp or something, there is a lot of time in summer and being intentional about some of it can stave off ennui. I am planning the equivalent of full-time homeschooling this summer - and that still leaves more than 2/3rds of my kid's waking hours for running around outside and everything else. (However, at 11, my child is considerably older so I wouldn't advise doing quite as much as we have planned.)

 

To the OP though, I would suggest you take a more holistic approach to language arts. Lots of discussion, lots of high quality read alouds like Andrew Lang, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shel Silverstein... lots of time at your local library, lots of beautiful picture books. Focusing on a love of reading rather than on the rather limited school concept of "comprehension" will get you farther in the long run; I wouldn't "push" reading as a challenging task.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm still trying to figure this out. As of now:

 

For DD (5, going into kindergarten)

--Horizons Math K (she's halfway through Book 1 now, and we plan to continue through Book 2 over the summer and next year)

--Explode the Code Book 1

--Plaid Phonics Level A (we're just begun this, and we'll continue)

--The Reading Lesson (continuing)

--practice writing/reading a few basic sight words 

--DK geography workbook K (finishing up)

--some logic puzzles and activities

 

For DS (8, going into 3rd grade):

--math -- introducing multiplication/division. I have a few simple store-bought workbooks for this but no cohesive plan yet.

--writing -- ?? need a plan/program here

--phonics/spelling -- ?? need a plan/program here, too

--typing practice (have to find and choose a good program)

--DK geography workbook 2nd Grade (finishing up)

--some logic puzzles and activities

 

I read aloud to both kids all the time, including lots of non-fiction (history and science). We also do science experiments about once a week over the summer (my husband loves to arrange this).

Edited by lilajoy
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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought cheap past editions of DD's college textbooks for next semester so she can pre-read. DuoLingo to refresh Spanish (she's been focusing on Latin the last few years, but is taking Spanish at the CC in the fall-mostly, I think, so she can join the Spanish club that meets in the school cafeteria for lunch every Wednesday to practice conversational Spanish). Work on her PowerPoints and other resources for the Herpetology class she's teaching in the fall. Monitor her ponds and local frog sites, catch snakes and lizards, and go to her summer program at a University and the Joint Meeting of Icthyologists and Herpetologists. Maybe something for math, too?

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I'm finalizing my plans... pushing hard on all fronts. I hesitate to post how much I do because I've seen afterschoolers on here judged for doing a lot; but I have a 2E child in a school that's great for the behavioral interventions, but of quite low value academically. In fact I'm already phasing in the summer stuff because they're already starting to slide into end of the year light-homework mode. (Not that I'm complaining, given their curriculum.) She thrives on the structure.

 

The main things I am looking at this summer are:

- outdoors stuff. Getting serious about both gross motor skills/fitness and nature study.

- adding variety to our math. MEP and Frank H. Hall's arithmetic (a vintage resource about halfway between Ray's and Strayer-Upton in both age and style) are our routine; I'll be bringing in word problems from EngageNY and Inside Mathematics Problem of the Month and reviewing fractions with the Rational Number Project. Looking to maybe bring in some elements of CSMP but still very early in the organizational project of teasing out the great parts (logic and relations, living books) from the not so great stuff (the hybrid binary/decimal "minicomputer" is not for us).

-self-made astronomy/earth science unit

-self-made early American history with library books

-gentle start to Classical House of Learning Ancients

-remediating both composition and penmanship with a variety of resources. The school's insistence on extended argumentative essays in elementary is starting to produce ridiculous results; I didn't realize just how inappropriate this was until I started reading in the neo-classical paradigm. I've hesitated to add more than incidental writing at home because the school already piles on so much, but she needs a chance to learn that essays aren't meant to be totally arbitrary and contrived.

-several weeks of day camp; several local festivals; plenty of church and library time; etc.

-mountains of salad and fresh fruit. I refuse to cook in the heat!

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I'm planning with dd9 just to carry on with MM at our usual pace, and ds7 will carry on with his K work.  They are homeschooled so really a continuation for them.  DS want to try forest school for a week, too.

 

Dd12 will be finishing ps grade 6 and will be going to the middle school next year, so I'slike to do some work with her.  August will be a write-off as she will be busy with sailing.  But I want to review some math based on what she struggled with this year.  It was largely a matter of needing more practice or poor explanations, so we'll just go over the MM chapters that apply.  I may encourage her o work on her Duolingo as she will be starting French Immersion in the fall. She is also going to try a few organ lessons with her piano teacher and see how she likes it.

 

I have been thinking it might be fun to do a unit study together, on the Victorian period.  We watched Victoria this winter and they all really liked it.  I might do Oliver Twist as a read aloud, or possibly some Sherlock Holmes.  Dd12 could also read something independantly, and we could watch some movies se in that period.  We will be visiting a museum village set in the Victorian era when we go on vacation, too.

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I'm planning with dd9 just to carry on with MM at our usual pace, and ds7 will carry on with his K work. They are homeschooled so really a continuation for them. DS want to try forest school for a week, too.

 

Dd12 will be finishing ps grade 6 and will be going to the middle school next year, so I'slike to do some work with her. August will be a write-off as she will be busy with sailing. But I want to review some math based on what she struggled with this year. It was largely a matter of needing more practice or poor explanations, so we'll just go over the MM chapters that apply. I may encourage her o work on her Duolingo as she will be starting French Immersion in the fall. She is also going to try a few organ lessons with her piano teacher and see how she likes it.

 

I have been thinking it might be fun to do a unit study together, on the Victorian period. We watched Victoria this winter and they all really liked it. I might do Oliver Twist as a read aloud, or possibly some Sherlock Holmes. Dd12 could also read something independantly, and we could watch some movies se in that period. We will be visiting a museum village set in the Victorian era when we go on vacation, too.

What's forest school? Outdoor ed?

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What's forest school? Outdoor ed?

 

It includes that, and in this case that is mostly what it would be.  But forest schools in some cases include regular school subjects too, usually for lower elementary grades and pre-school.     But done outdoors in a forest or natural envionment.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_school_(learning_style)

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It includes that, and in this case that is mostly what it would be. But forest schools in some cases include regular school subjects too, usually for lower elementary grades and pre-school. But done outdoors in a forest or natural envionment.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_school_(learning_style)

O, I see. Thanks for the information & link. You learn something new everyday.

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  • 1 month later...

Summer starts late for us as we have school right until the end of June. Summer is our intensive afterschooling period since my husband and I take turns being home with the kids all summer.

 

For my almost 8 year old and just turned 10 year old so far:

 

Multiplication math fact practice

 

French verb drills

 

Cursive handwriting practice with HWT

 

Typing

 

And some kind of intensive remedial language arts/writing program in August.  (I am still researching what I want to use)

 

My 8 year old is going to work through the LEGO WeDo projects.

 

My 10 year old is going to work through some Little Bits projects, maybe play with Arduino, and maybe do more Scratch programming. He wants to learn Python, but I think he needs more Scratch first.

 

With my 3 year old who is starting junior kindergarten in the fall, we will do some phonics and some light introduction to French.

 

I am excited to get started.

 

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