by Suzanne Fort

Created on: June 09, 2009   Last Updated: July 20, 2009

The school year is winding down for many school-age children. Children get to go enjoy their summer in the sun and water with friends and family. During all the fun and relaxation we are having we tend to forget something very important. We tend to forget the education that may be lost during the summer months without re-teaching old skills and learning new ones.

The good news is that a lot of the fun we have in the summer can incorporate things learned in school. When you take your child to the zoo, you can use Science information and talk about what species the animals are. You can make the Science lesson easy or hard depending on the age of the child.

If you go on a road trip somewhere you can talk about Geography and History when you are going to your destination. As a parent, you could look up information before hand and design a worksheet for your child to fill out when they get there. If you go to the beach, you can study marine life. There is not any destination traveled that could not provide many learning opportunities.

When you have family game night (if you do have that) you could make up fun games that deal with things they have learned that previous year or will learn about in the following year. If you don't know what your child will learn the following year, you can talk to your school district and they can provide a list of learning "targets" that the school district and state will want your child to focus on.

The local library usually has summer reading programs. Some give incentives for reading a certain amount of pages in the summer. There are even programs for adults in some areas to read a certain number of books. Some libraries will have guests come in and teach about a certain subject and then read books relating to that subject. Check out your local library for more information.

Some parents may decide to have a very strict summer of lots of homework assignments and learning assignments but the best thing is to make it fun and not seem like work. For younger children simple things like going to the grocery store and counting out change for an item can teach the child math. Older children may benefit learning math by getting a simple job and learning about interest rates at banks and maybe even budgeting.

There are camps that children can go to in the summer. They can learn about nature and many other things, such as social skills that are sometimes not always taught in school. Teamwork can also be taught through sports or other types of activities.

Basically, anything you do in the summer can be fun and educational if you use a little bit of creativity. Realize that your child wants to have fun and relax in the summer, so don't take the fun out of the educational experiences that your child can have.

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