Help your child continue to build her academic skills and prevent the all too common “summer slide” with these fun ideas.

Summer is a time for outdoor games, poolside laughter, and fun in the sun. Yet, it is also a time when many kids lose valuable academic skills. In fact, research tells us that kids can lose up to three months of academic gains in reading and math over the summer. Help your child continue to build her academic skills and prevent the all too common “summer slide” with the ideas detailed below.

Read…a lot!

It’s easy to let regular reading time slip over the summer when days are long and activities often run late. Yet, it is important that kids continue reading on a consistent ‎basis throughout the course of the summer. This isn’t just limited to novels–your child can read newspapers, comic books, trivia books, short stories, or the like. You may even try setting up “family reading hour” (or portion of an hour) where all members of your family gather together for a pre-set time period and read. Try to lead by example and show your child how much joy reading can bring. In doing so, he will likely follow your lead and eventually come to enjoy the task.

Play (fun) learning games

Most kids enjoy playing games, so take advantage of down time this summer to play some education-based games that are still loads of fun. You can play Boggle, for instance, where you shake a tray filled with dice to form a grid of 16 letters. Players then have three minutes to create as many words as they can using the letters. You can also try playing Apples to Apples, where players build their language skills by matching red “object” cards to green “descriptive” cards and try to come up with the best pairs. To build your child’s vocabulary and reading skills, play Zingo!, where players match pictures and words, or you can play HiHo! Cherry-O with younger children to build foundational math skills, like number recognition, counting, and basic arithmetic.

Have fun in the kitchen!

To build your child’s math skills, ‎try cooking a meal or baking a dessert with him. If you decide to make brownies, for instance, ask your child to measure the correct amount of oil and water in a measuring cup. You may try “doubling” the recipe and ask him how much more of each ingredient you would now need, and how many more brownies you can now expect with the doubled ingredients. Have him read the recipe and directions to practice his reading skills, or perhaps have him write a menu for a meal you cook your family, or a review on each dish you created. The more fun and interactive you can make the process, the better!

Practice writing at the beach

For younger children, you can work on basic skills development, like letter and number writing, using sand at the beach, dirt at the park, or even flour in your kitchen. For instance, if you are practicing the letter p, have your child say the words “down, up, and around” out loud as she traces the letter in the sand, or “around, up, and down” as she writes the letter a. You might try spraying some shaving cream on a cookie tray and have her trace different letters and numbers using her finger for added tactile reinforcement. For basic math skills, have her count out a quantity of jelly beans or buttons, then ask her questions like, “If my friend gives me 2 j‎elly beans and another friend gives me 2 more jelly beans, how many jelly beans would I have all together?” or “If I had 5 jelly beans but I ate 2 of them, how many would I have left?” These types of exercises will help your child learn to solve basic addition and subtraction problems.

Electronic learning

Most kids love playing games on an iPad, so why not try integrating some learning-based apps? Try some of the following ones:

Starfall Learn to Read

Ages 4 and up

This is a great app for reinforcing basic reading skills. It includes 15 short books for kids to read that each emphasize a different sound pattern and contain animated videos, songs, and engaging characters. Each book also includes activities related to the story, including matching and fill-in-the-blank exercises.

Hungry Fish
Ages 4-8

This app is a helpful tool for building addition, subtraction, and mental math skills. To play, kids drag and combine numbers in bubbles, then “feed” them to a floating fish. When the fish is fed correct answers, it expands, and it shrinks when it does not receive correct answers. As players complete each level, they move on to more challenging ones, always receiving immediate feedback along the way.

Sentence Builder

Ages 6 and up

Your child can develop important grammar, sentence structure, and overall writing skills with this fun and engaging app. To play, students use slot machine-style wheels to select words, then create sentences describing various pictures. The app begins with basic sentences and later moves onto more complex ones. The images are bright and colorful, and students build critical sentence formation and writing skills.

Summer is a time when many kids lose key academic skills. Try these activities to help your child prevent “summer slide” and jump-start the new school year on a positive note.

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Educational apps to help your child start Kindergarten on a positive, confident note

With summer in full swing, most kids enjoy spending their time running, swimming, and playing outdoors. Yet summer is a long period of time without consistent learning, and if your child is getting ready to start Kindergarten in the fall, you won’t want to miss this opportunity to reinforce early learning.

Help your child prepare for Kindergarten while still having fun‎ with the apps detailed below!

ABC Letter Tracing
Learning to form letters properly when writing can be challenging for many students. This app helps children learn to form letters correctly and gives them ample practice tracing them. Players are presented with both upper- and lower-case letters and work on tracing these letters with proper top-to-bottom formations using their finger (great tactile reinforcement!). A colorful picture corresponds to each letter, giving students a visual aid for remembering the sound each letter makes. This app is useful for both early learning and fine motor skills development. Free on iTunes

Montessori Rhymetime Learning Games for Kids
Learning to rhyme is a key component of reading success. In this app, students learn to identify different sounds in words and match words that rhyme using bright, colorful pictures. ‎ The app contains six hands-on activities, starting with basic rhyme games and progressing to more challenging ones. The games can be played independently, or parents can engage with their children by having them articulate their reasoning for why they selected certain pictures. This multi-sensory app is one students love playing, and helps solidify phonemic awareness, a precursor to reading. Free on iTunes 

Moose Math by Duck Duck Moose
This app helps build several important Kindergarten math skills, including ‎addition, subtraction, counting, and sorting. The app contains five different activities, including Moose Juice where kids make “smoothies” (and practice addition, subtraction, and counting skills); Paint Pet, where players count dots to match pets; Pet Bingo, where kids answer counting, addition, and subtraction problems; Lost and Found, where players sort colors and shapes; and Dot to Dot, where players connect dots. $1.99 on iTunes

Starfall Learn to Read
This app is a great tool for building and reinforcing basic phonics concepts, including sound/letter recognition and blending. Similar to the Starfall website, the app presents fifteen “mini books” that each focus on a certain vowel pattern, including short sounds, long sounds, vowel teams, and r-controlled sounds. The app also includes whimsical, fun-filled videos to reinforce reading  (like “The Amazing Silent e” and “Y can be a Vowel!”) and other engaging phonics-based activities. $2.99 on iTunes

Stumpy’s Alphabet Dinner
This is a great app for teaching kids to recognize letters and shapes, while they “feed” colorful characters.  To play the letter segment, a word pops up and kids must “feed” ‎Stumpy the monster by identifying and dragging specific letters. Likewise, they feed Stumpy’s friend Lexie shapes in a similar manner, while building key early academic skills. Free on iTunes

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A local education expert shares advice for helping your child feel confident and successful in math.

Some kids are seemingly born with a natural knack for math. They understand addition and subtraction concepts at a very young age and love the thrill of solving complex word problems. Other students, however, feel they are simply not good at math and perhaps never will be. Yet whether the teaching approach at your child’s school is traditional or progressive, math is here to stay, and students will need to solve increasingly complex math problems as they move through school. Use the tips below to help your child feel confident and successful in math.

Master the Basics

Without mastering basic math fundamentals, students will inevitably struggle as the material becomes more complex. To prevent these future challenges, allocate time at home to helping your child build key math foundations. For preschool-aged children, practice number ‎recognition, counting, patterns, sequencing, and shape recognition, as an “intro” to math. Try cutting out individual numbers and having your child put them back in order to work on sequencing, or play a matching game with shapes, where players must flip over and match two cards containing the same shape.  When your child is older, practice skip counting (counting by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, etc.) using objects at home, such as marbles, toy cars, or Lego pieces. You can also use flash cards to reinforce addition doubles, then addition doubles plus or minus one (i.e., if I know 2+2 equals 4, then 2+5 must equal 5). Reinforce numbers that make 10–an important element of Common Core math–such as 8 plus how many more makes 10. Building

Complete Homework

Homework is typically designed to reinforce concepts that are taught in class. It is important that your child completes his math homework regularly, since practice ensures that he understands a given concept before a new one is introduced. If your child struggles with a particular homework assignment, encourage him to seek clarification from his teacher, or you can help explain it to him–just use a method that is consistent with the way he learned it in school. By completing homework regularly and addressing any challenging concepts, you can prevent future challenges your child may have down the road.

Use the Computer and iPad as Resources

Most kids jump at any opportunity to use a tech device. While their preference may be playing a game of Candy Crush or Cookie Jam, there are some great math-specific iPad apps and websites that can help your child understand and practice math concepts. Yummy Math teaches students how math applies to the real world, multiplication.com offers facts practice, and PBS LearningMedia provides videos to clarify certain math concepts‎. As for apps, Counting Caterpillar gives pre-K kids practice counting and sequencing, Math Master reinforces patterns, shapes, time, and fractions, among other key skills, and TouchMath Adventures provides a multi-sensory approach to building math skills.  ‎

Integrate Manipulatives

By integrating hands-on manipulatives, you can help your child understand key concepts, rather than simply knowing how to calculate solutions. When teaching counting, use toothpicks, paper clips, buttons, or the like. Practice fractions using a real pizza–remove two out of the six slices and ‎ask your child what fraction of the pizza was removed and what fraction is left. Use play (or real) coins and bills when teaching money, tiles when teaching shapes and geometry, and spinners for learning probability.

Connect Math to Real Life

For many students, math seems abstract and completely disconnected to real life. Who is really going to multiply 264 by 36 in the real world anyways? Help your child see how math can apply to day-to-day activities to help peak her interest. For example, when shopping at the supermarket, ask your child how many apples you are buying if you put 3 green ones and 4 red ones in your cart, or how much the box of Cheerios will come to if it is 10 percent off. When playing with Legos, ask your child how many total studs there are if she has one piece with four studs, one with two, and another with six. Rememeber to keep it real, and keep it fun!

Math can pose a significant challenge to many students. They may feel utterly confused and frustrated at times. Yet with these tips, your child will feel more confident, successful, and excited about math.

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Math is a skill that is integrated into almost all aspects of our lives. While children receive formal math instruction starting in Kindergarten, even at a very young age, they can begin to learn fundamental math concepts through play and engaging activities. Try some of the ideas below to build your preschooler’s pre-math skills.

Counting and Sorting
Turn an outing at the park into a math-oriented learning experience. Have your child collect a bucket full of various types of pebbles and then lay them out on a flat surface. Ask him to sort the pebbles based on various attributes – color, shape, size, etc. Then have him count the number of pebbles in each group. For a higher level math experience, create a graph on a white board or sheet of construction paper, and write a tally mark for each pebble in the group. Then discuss which group had the most and least number of pebbles and compare the numbers. You can do this same activity with shells at a beach, buttons, or various types of toys.

Have Fun with Shapes
Learning to recognize and identify shapes is an important early math skill. To develop this skill, cut out various shapes using construction paper and discuss their attributes with your child. Ask her to tell you how many sides she sees on a square, triangle, rectangle, and so on. You can even cut out larger colored shapes and play a “jumping” game, where you tell her to jump on the red triangle, for instance, then the purple circle, orange square, etc. When you are driving or walking outside, point out various shapes that you encounter in the “real” world – a triangle shaped road sign, a circular wheel, or a rectangle shaped price tag at the supermarket.

Play with Patterns
Help your child understand patterns using every day household items. Take out dry pieces of pasta, cereal, beads, gummy bears, and the like. Have him first create patterns that you dictate – pasta, gummy bear, pasta, gummy bear, for instance, then perhaps cereal, pasta, gummy bear, cereal, pasta, gummy bear, and so on. Then he can create his own patterns while you supervise, starting with basic patterns and eventually encouraging him to try more complex ones. You can also ask your child to look around for patterns on common items, such as clothing, tablecloths, toys, pillows, and curtains, and even play “I Spy” with various pattern-containing items. When you cook dinner, try presenting the food in a pattern, such as pea, corn, pea, corn, etc., and see if your child notices. Remind him that patterns are everywhere!

Learn Through Blocks
Most kids love playing with blocks. You can integrate pre-math skills by asking your child to build two different towers using blocks, then compare them. As her which tower is taller, which is shorter, and how many blocks were used to create each tower. You can play a matching game with colored blocks by having her match two of the exact same blocks and then having her tell you the shape and color of each block. For an additional sonsory experience, encourage her to experiment with different types of blocks: wood blocks, foam blocks, mirror blocks, magnetic blocks, prism blocks, and so one. These various types of blocks will add to the fun of early learning.

Understand Time
Help your child understand time at a young age. Try using a timer to time short activities – those that take 1-3 minutes or so. For instance, time him brushing his teeth, getting dressed, or building a tower. ‎Discuss which tasks took longer, how much longer one task took than the other, and so on. Also talk to him about what time he does certain activities. For instance, he might wake up at 7:30am, go to school at 8:30am, and eat dinner at 5:00pm. Practicing these time-oriented skills will help your child with time management skills down the road.

Young children love to play. Engage your child in these play-oriented activities and help him develop strong pre-math skills. He will ultimately develop a joy for learning along with the foundations for math success.

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