Summer and School

In 11 school days we will be heading into the summer!  Not that i am actually counting....

Each year we face an investigation of the ups and downs/ pros and cons for the summer assignments... There are many articles written each year and many studies have been completed and analyzed ad nauseum, but the fact is that there is a benefit to keeping skills honed and sharp! 

There are studies that suggest it works and studies that suggest it does not achieve the desired affect. I do believe the summer math should be done, without being a burden. But the skill of math is something that does need to be continuously refined and summer can be a big help. I included a few options for summer math.

Summer reading studies show a great result affecting all areas of a child's education. One of the ways to keep students excited about the books they are reading is to have them go to the website, www.tagxedo.com.  Tagxedo allows anyone to create bookmarks, word clouds, etc... from words chosen from the books they read.  This is a good way to have students be creative in how they summarize the stories they read.  


I might suggest other ways to have students review math skills... These will also have the desired effect of having kids use rainy days to work on their technology skills, keyboarding, etc...

1. Have them complete one or two Study Island units,

2. Pre-Algebra and Algebra students could play a free math interactive game called "Lure of the Labyrinth ( http://labyrinth.thinkport.org/www/index.php )

3. Everyday math games : http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/

4. Games from the Interactive Manipulatives page we have linked on our website: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

5. Finally.. the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has some really neat games online http://www.nctm.org/resources/content.aspx?id=23220
There are some really easy and some really challenging games and some very easy review games as well...


Till next time...