A list in fives

5 things to do for your BODY this summer:

1. Climb a tree
2. Swim in a lake
3. Go for a hike
4. Ride a bike
5. Get a good night’s sleep every night

Five things to do for your BRAIN this summer:

1. Read a classic novel
2. Learn five new words and use them as often as possible
3. Play games that challenge your mind
4. Keep a scrapbook of your daily activities and wildlife observations
5. Start a short story and add a new paragraph every day

5 things to learn and do TOGETHER as a family:

1. Learn the names of trees in your area
2. Start a collection of rocks or seashells or anything that you can collect together
3. Identify birds that you commonly see
4. Learn how to tie a knot
5. Take a hike at a new trail

5 things to do this summer to Get Ready for the next school year:

1. Establish a back-to-school routine. Begin following school day bedtimes and morning routines well in advance of back to school for an easy transition back to the classroom.
2. Turn off the TV. Research has shown that watching TV before bed over-stimulates the brain and prevents sleep.
3. Get organized. Time management is a learned skill, not acquired one. Use a family calendar to stay on top of appointments and schedules all summer long.
4. Keep reading. Reading continually improves reading comprehension skills and develops vocabulary.
5. Don’t run on autopilot. With school closed for the summer, kids can easily fall behind. To prevent this, kids should engage in some sort of learning or other mentally stimulating activity throughout the summer to keep their minds sharp and always ready to learn.

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Summer Camps to keep students on track

So, the final bell of the school year has rung; and though the classroom is closed for the season, it doesn’t mean that a child’s potential to learn has stopped. In fact, summer is a critical time for learning. Without some measure of formal education, kids can experience a significant drop in their learning momentum that can affect how they perform next year.

Research into the study of summer learning shows some pretty surprising findings. Here are The Facts that you need to know—

• All students experience SUMMER LEARNING LOSSES when they do not engage in educational activities in the summer.
• On average, students lose approximately 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency in mathematical computational skills during the summer months.
• 56% of students want to be involved in a summer program that “helps kids keep up with summer schoolwork or prepare for the next grade.”
• Research shows that teachers typically spend between four-six weeks re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer.
• Since 1996, researchers have studied the effect of summer break on student learning. A common finding across these studies is that students generally score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer.
• Research demonstrates that all students experience significant learning losses in procedural and factual knowledge during the summer months.

How the summer break can impact your child’s learning: some numbers:

• 2.6—the numbers of months that it can take to get back into the swing of learning in the fall
• 60—the number of days that children spend not learning over the summer
• 6—the number of weeks that teachers have to spend reviewing material from last year

And two very important numbers to consider when planning your children’s summer schedule:

• 2-3—the number of hours per week of supplemental education needed to prevent summer education losses and keep your child on track for education success.

With these very important numbers in mind, doesn’t it make sense to include learning in your child’s summer? Summer camps at Oxford Learning make it easy. Find a location near you and beat summer learning losses for good.

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End-of-year report cards are almost here…with their arrival comes the potential for shocking and unpleasant revelations.

Report cards are generally upheld as the ultimate indicator of student progress—after all, they are the final word on a child’s academic progress in the school year—but the wait and the wondering about what the report card will reveal can be very stressful to both kids and parents alike.

In an attempt to remove the wondering and the unpleasant surprises from the reporting process, school boards across the US have implemented online programs such as EdLine, to help parents monitor their children’s daily academic standing.

According to an article in the New York Times called I Know What You Did Last Math Class these programs open the lines of communication and to keep parents informed at every possible opportunity throughout the school year, not just when report cards arrive.

The reporting technology fuels the debate about a parent’s level of involvement and what is or isn’t private in a child’s education. As you might expect, responses to programs that allow parents to monitor their child’s progress online vary from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Keeping informed of your child’s academic progress however is not dependent solely on new online technologies—there are many other warning signs throughout the year which signal that a student may be heading into academic hot water.

There are the newer technology or web-based indicators; school blogs, teacher sites, and class webpages where parents can log on and read what particular assignment a class is working on now. There are behavioral indications—bad attitudes about school, lack of motivation, lying, skipping classes; and there are the more obvious warnings—a poor mark on a test, homework not completed, or even the dreaded a call from the teacher.

Regardless of any warning signs that may have been missed during the school year, the end-of-year report card is the final update. And while it may be the end of the road for progress in the school year, it doesn’t mean that all hope for the academic future is lost.

After all, there is still the summer to get the kids back on track, even if there is no online monitoring program.

More on that next time.

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Science fairs submissions are usually fairly predictable… there’s hot air balloons, and growing mold on bread, the solar system, waves, generating electricity from a potato, wind energy, magnets, and of course, the ever-popular exploding volcano.

But one high school student has set the bar for all future science fair submissions. For his tenth-grade science fair 16-year old Daniel Burd did more than describe the science behind a common scientific problem—what to do with all the plastic bags—he searched for a real-life solution.

And so began Daniel’s award-winning science fair project. He began with what he already knew—that microorganisms are involved in the breakdown of plastic—and then set about isolating, identifying, and measuring those microorganisms.

He measured, counted and retested for about three months until he was able to prove his theories successfully, and identify a real-world application for his discoveries. And then it was off to the Canada-wide Science Fair in Ottawa to win the top prize.

Burd may seem to be a gifted or exceptionally talented student—and certainly he stands out when compared to other 10th graders and their more predictable science fair submissions.

But the one thing that truly make’s Burd’s Plastic Not Fantastic project so outstanding is not the fact that he could isolate microbes, run control groups, and accurately follow the scientific method. It’s not even that he attempted to find a solution to one of the biggest ecological problems of our time.

What makes Daniel Burd stand out from the crowd is his active mind and the fact that he was able to make connections from what he learned in school to home life to environmental issues. The ability to transfer skills, understand interconnectivity, and look for solutions to everyday problems—these skills represent educational ideals at their best.

It’s these skills that make Daniel Burd a winner in our books.

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The end of the school year is almost here. For many students in high school that means the inevitable arrival of final exams.

And for the majority of those teens, blood pressure and anxiety levels are on the rise–exam time is easily one of the most stressful times in a student’s life.

To beat the stress, students employ the usual gamut of study skills, but one that often gets overlooked is formal tutoring. Maybe its because tutoring is generally thought of as needed when students are in trouble academically.

But the thing is, tutoring can help students do so much more than just bring up their grades—tutoring can help students take control of their education, which in turn, can eliminates stress. After all, isn’t that what stress is? A lack of a feeling of control in life.

But to get to the point where they feel more in control, students first have to get organized, get their homework done, improve their self-confidence, and learn to think actively. Formal tutoring can help them achieve all these goals and more.

Tutoring:

• Is a reliable routine
• Helps develop motivation and confidence
• Offers support and encouragement
• Is free from peer pressure
• Teaches time management
• Offers student much needed educational advice and acts as a sounding board

Sometimes, eliminating stress is as simple as knowing that someone is in your corner.

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