by Marie Borrazzo

Created on: July 03, 2008   Last Updated: July 05, 2008

Students lose a significant amount of knowledge acquired during the summer due to intellectual inactivity. There are several activities and strategies that can be employed to counter the loss of academic knowledge during the summer months.

As an educator and often baby sitter during the summer months, I encourage you to engage in a few fun yet educational activities which enhance FCAT skills in Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and even Science.

My favorite activity to engage the youngsters in is the planning of our Fourth of July celebration which I want to share with you. All of these activities should proactively- supervised by an adult and although you assist them in this process the youngsters should be provided a degree of freedom of choice.

During this activity allow your child to organize the event, select a menu, shop for the food, drinks, and other party related necessities, create invitations, and even plan the activities for the celebration.

The first step is to organize the event which means that you will teach your child how to draft, organize and prepare a formal outline of what the event will be like. This is an important skill which high achieving students possess.

During the process of selecting the menu, children should be encouraged to read labels, learn about nutrition, learn to cook simple meals and appetizers, and other related fun, yet in the process acquire life skills relating to cooking and nutrition. Mathematics is highly involved in this process as is the skill of learning about balanced nutrition, measuring, setting timers, and other related cooking skills. Skills such as proportion, percentages, and totaling are practiced as they read food labels and sort out the healthiest and/or tastiest purchases.

The process of shopping can be used to teach children about budgets and balancing out the cost of menu items and proportions. Your child can rehearse typical FCAT math type problems during this process. Simple decisions such as fractional costs of certain deals and figuring the differences in cost per pound or ounces can be rehearsed during this activity.

During the process of creating invitations you can encourage your child to include a brief depiction of the History of the fourth of July along with pictures, and other materials and resources available. Since computer skills are a necessary skill, encourage them to use technology during this process by typing, designing, and developing the invitations. With a simple activity such as this you are targeting several areas including History, writing, language arts, and computer skills.

A simple, fun Holiday can enhance or sustain acquired knowledge and provide a platform for you to enjoy quality time with your child. The key is to plan ahead and remain engaged throughout the process and most of all, have fun family time.

Happy Holidays.

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