Preventing "Summer Brain Drain" in Kids
With summer upon us, most kids are enjoying their much-needed time away from the classroom. But if they're not staying mentally active, they can suffer from "summer brain drain."
Research has shown that children could lose months' worth of math and reading skills during the summer.
But there are some fun and inexpensive ways to keep their minds active. Time to Play magazine contributor and parenting expert Shannon Eis stopped by The Early Show to provide some tips on how to keep kids' minds in gear all summer long with fun and simple brain-boosting activities.
Some are hands-on; some feature state-of-the-art technology.
According to Eis, during the summer, our kids of course deserve some fun and relaxation, but it's important that their brains don't take a break all summer long.
Research shows kids in grades kindergarten through sixth lose between one and three months of learning, or about 45 percent of what they learned during the school year, throughout those long summer days.
For younger kids, that figure can be even higher, since they're still learning how to compartmentalize and apply learning they acquired throughout the school year.
Ways to keep their math skills in tune:
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Kids lose more math skills than anything else over the summer. And sitting down with a text book and expecting your child to do math problems on a nice summer day is a little unrealistic. So try to incorporate some math-related activities into the daily routine.
Teach kids about conversions between metric and English units by cooking meals together, letting your child follow the recipe and get all the measurements. Recipes usually make good use of fractions (one third of a cup of flour, 1/2 a cup of sugar, etc). They can do all the measuring, weighing and so on. They won't even realize they're doing math.
Large Thermometer
Also, teach kids about Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion by hanging a thermometer outside to track the temperature throughout the summer and keeping a log of the temperatures. If the temperature reads Fahrenheit, teach your kids how to convert it to Celsius.
Ways to keep reading and writing skills sharp:
Books
Summer reading is really really important. Early readers need year-long guidance and vocabulary-building. Parents, you want to help your child's vacationing brain build creativity, writing skills, and vocabulary. So obviously, keep them reading throughout the summer months. Find out what books they're interested in, and keep plenty of books around. You don't have to spend a lot of money either. You can head to the local library and let them hunt around for the books they want to read. Some libraries have summer reading programs and other educational programs for kids, so you might want to consider signing up for those also.
Simple Project that's fun and kids will appreciate later in life:
Summer Scrap Book/Summer Journal
If you take a family vacation or perhaps just a day trip to the beach, or maybe you spent a weekend camping, scrap books are a fun and creative way to remember those trips. Your kids can fill pages by writing details of their experiences, adding photos and captions, and placing any items they collected during the summer months inside. Also, encourage your child to keep a journal this summer. It's a fun way to work on their writing and vocabulary skills without it feeling like homework.
You say there are some fun ways to make trips to a zoo or museum educational and fun. Talk a bit about that.
Post Cards
Yes, day trips to the zoo or museum are educational and fun. But why not make it a bit more fun by turning it into a treasure hunt? Get your children excited about visiting a museum by exploring the museum's website and taking a virtual tour - many of these sites have scavenger hunt resources online. When you go to a museum, take into account short attention spans and don't try to cover a whole museum in one day. Also, look for interactive exhibits and for periods of history that your child has studied in school.
According to Eis, there are also some toys which are fun for kids to play with, but also serve an educational purpose, such as:
Tag by Leap Frog
It's no secret kids love games and toys spend a lot of their free time playing them. So why not introduce them to some educational games? Here's a product from Leap Frog, it's called Tag. It's a really cool reading tool for young kids. It looks like a giant pen, and you run it across these books and it talks, the pictures sing, etc. as you go along.
Loopz
Here's another fun game that will keep kids minds working. It's called Loopz. It's sort of like Simon Says. It's a music memory game that challenges you to repeat patterns of light and music. Just follow the pattern of light and music. Kids really like this game and again, it stimulates your child's brain.
Also, there are a ton of educational games available for personal computers and gaming systems. So, if your child enjoys playing video games, you say to encourage them to take on some of the educational games, right?
iPad
Definitely. There are a whole bunch of educational games which are fun but also designed to challenge kids minds. I've installed a few of them onto my iPad and will allow my kids to spend some time playing them. In this case, these games are available as Apps. They're inexpensive and kids love playing them. Also, check out iTunes U is a great online educational resource with tons of content on just about every topic.