Are We Bored Yet?
by John Pearson
Parents – It’s July! Do you know where your kids are? Better yet, do you know what they're doing to stay out of trouble?
June seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye, and August is just around the corner. Here we are half way through the summer vacation, and little Jimmy may very well be getting bored with playing Grand Theft Auto. Even kids who couldn't wait for school to be out (since November!) eventually run out of ideas for what to do next. Have no fear, Mr. Teacher is here with a few ideas to keep your kids active during the doldrums of summer.
- Make sure they are reading! Every day is best, but every other day is acceptable over the summer. All kids can benefit from reading practice, whether they can barely read (help them with Go, Dog, Go!) or they are operating on a college level (give them Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and stand back).
- Keep them occupied for hours by asking them to search for words that rhyme with "orange."
- For math practice, have them keep an updated bar graph and data table that charts the results of Olympic events. Before each contest, your kids can make their predictions of who they think will win and graph those results as well. Just remember -- the Olympics are an amateur event, so no wagering, please.
- Engage them in a spirited debate on who is the better Jason -- Bateman or Giambi?
- Help them research the Eskimo language and then come up with a brand new word for "snow" (2618 and counting!)
- Encourage them to exercise! Get them started on the workout family consisting of push-ups, sit-ups (push-up’s brother), and leg lifts (push-up’s redheaded step cousin).
- Along the same lines, make sure they are eating healthy. Don't serve them pancakes wrapped around sausages on sticks for breakfast. They'll get plenty of those when they return to school in August.
- Develop those mapmaking skills by asking them to draw the neighborhood. This is actually a valuable skill in math AND social studies. The map need not be perfectly to scale, but it should be accurate. In other words, your home shouldn't be an inch away from Six Flags if your neighbor is on the other side of the piece of paper.
- Did I suggest reading yet? Tell them to read some more! The better they can read (and comprehend what they've read), the better they will perform in all other subjects in school.
- These are just a few suggestions for activities to help your children make it through the long summer vacation. Get them started on this list, and there won't be another boring moment soon.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish reading Go, Dog, Go! again.
John Pearson is a third-grade math and science teacher in Dallas, Texas. He has degrees in mechanical engineering from Duke University and Texas A&M, so most consider his math abilities adequate enough to teach nine-year olds. He is also the author of Learn Me Good (Lulu, 2006), a funny, fictionalized account of his first year in education. Read more at learnmegood2.blogspot.com
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Posted by Each1Teach1 on Jul 19, 2008 4:57 am