Keeping your Child Engaged in Learning During Summer Months

At an end-of-year celebration, I overheard a 5th grader say, “I liked learning here; I will miss this place.” Does your student feel that way? Or, does she make a dash for the door on the last day of school, ready to never look back? Either way, it is important to engage your child so he or she can continue to learn outside of the classroom.

Keeping your student eager to learn should be a primary objective in your parenting strategy. Summertime is a great opportunity to learn new skills and hobbies, discover other interests, and strengthen conceptual material that is holding your student back. And if your child claims to be bored five minutes after school break begins, embrace the opportunity of teaching him or her to be proactive about his abilities and tasks: simply find something to do and make it fun.

Easy activities your student can do to keep learning throughout the summer months:

• Create a list of all the “I wonder why’s.” On another day, go to the library and see how many answers you can get to those questions. Spread the work out throughout summer, so your student always has questions to research.
• Write a letter to a distant relative. You know the old fashion kind—stamp, envelope.
• Wash the car or windows. This is not a punishment—learning how to take care of community property is an important life skill. See if they can figure out how to do it better!
• Have them research vacation possibilities for the family for under $50.00 a day. Challenge them by having two of the days be completely free—no money spent. Remember that summer time should be a “break” from class, but never a time to stop learning. So, make learning as much fun as possible, and make every fun activity correlate with a simple lesson.

BlogTalkRadio

BlogTalkRadio continues to be an excellent tool for voicing important issues. On the June 3rd live show, we discussed how our upcoming documentary will be used to inspire parents as they help their students become lifelong learners. We also had guest speaker, Catherine Busch Johnston, who explained why she is involved with the documentary and feels all parents should view the movie. If you missed the chat, click here.

The next live chat is set for June 10th, where we will have a special guest, Joy Anderson. Joy will be sharing how the choice of utilizing the Individual Learning Plan process has put her in a positive place with facilitating her own preschool. So make sure to tune in to BlogTalkRadio on June 10th at 12 p.m. PST.

Drive-In Party Cities

The Parent Driven Schools’ documentary is nearly complete, and we’re excited to release this great resource for parents, teachers, and students! In the mean time, we are pleased to see many Drive-In viewing parties being created around the nation. Have you joined a party yet? The following cities have viewing parties already planned: Tacoma, WA; Enid, OK; Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Danville, CA; San Antonio, TX; Salem, MA; and Houston , TX.  We are looking for many more cities to join in on these viewing parties!  Want to have one in your community?  E-Mail us at .

"It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts... it is to teach them to think, if that is possible, and always to think for themselves."

BlogTalkRadio

Listen to our latest BlogTalkRadio session. Click here to visit our BlogTalk Radio page!

Facebook Update

We are collecting stories via Facebook for an upcoming BlogTalk live chat! Please become a fan of PDS on Facebook, and share your ideas and stories with us regarding the question: How do you encourage your student to be a successful learner? Click here to visit our Facebook page and become a fan.

Call the Helpline for Hot Tips!
Did you know you can call the PDS Helpline for support preparing an ILP? Call us!
800-979-4436