This was my tenth summer with school-aged children, so by now I know not to bother saving all the workbooks and worksheets and flashcards and suggested exercises the teachers send home for summer use. When I see all that stuff, I WANT to use it. I’ll INTEND to use it. But I know we won’t, because experience is a better teacher than I am.
I do feel a little bad about it: so much preparation and work and planning and stapling and putting into packets; so much paper wasted. But I didn’t ask for that preparation and work to be done, or for that paper to be used, and teaching is very low on my life-skills list. And also, it doesn’t matter WHY we don’t use them, since the fact is that we won’t. I can recycle everything at the beginning of summer, or I can wait and recycle it all the night before school starts when we’re making sure the backpacks are ready.
Last summer, I recycled everything at the beginning. That’s my preference, since then I don’t have to deal with it while I’m stressed about getting things ready for back-to-school. But THIS summer, the children caught me and insisted that everything be kept. They WOULD do the workbooks, they WOULD! They WANTED to! They WOULD practice their math facts! They WOULD do the speech exercises and the math games and the reading comprehension booklets!
Of course they did not. Nor did I suddenly change temperaments and turn into someone who would sit down with them each day and require it. (My mother was of that temperament. She was also a teacher.)
I’ve heard the arguments about how much progress children lose over the summer if they don’t practice the skills. I’m not sure how that translated to “and so untrained/inexperienced parents should be told to spend 1/4th of the year homeschooling multiple grades,” instead of into “and so we should have school all year instead of taking summers off.” And since not all the children will get this review over the summer, the first part of the year will have to be spent in review anyway, which will be even more boring for children who DID spend the summer reviewing. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how compelling the arguments are, or how fervently I intend to support the school by being a summer teacher, or how much I want to do what I’m asked to do, or how much the practice is needed, or whether or not it’s even a good idea to do it: the fact remains that I DON’T DO IT.
I. Love. You. I could have written this post word for word, thought for thought, except for the part about “ten years of experience.” Mine is only… what? Three? But nonetheless. And now you’ve saved me some time- I can stop wondering if at some point I will magically become a person who feels compelled to stick to a Summer Program of Enriching Activities, and instead go ahead and assume I will remain myself, a person who sticks to a summer program of letting everyone sleep as late as they want, and trying for simple goals of “playing outside every day at some point if possible” and “by some point in the day everyone has gotten dressed.” I am such an overachiever.
I intended to have my older child write in a journal over the summer to keep up his penmanship and make him think *just a little* but it just got to be so hard and I think there may have been 5 entries.
Ahh well our summer workbooks are MANDATORY. My going into fourth grader had a two dozen page Math workbook and a book report and also some required computer enrichment work. They can tell by her login that she did it and WHEN she did it so I made her do at least some of it a couple weeks ago so it wasn’t obvious we waited until the last minute. (I don’t know why I care what they think about WHEN it was done) But I don’t sit down with her or anything – I just remind her (almost daily) to do some of it. She did read her book and she did the math workbook so I shouldn’t complain but she hasn’t done the book report and it’s giving me hives. But we are going with Natural Consequences this summer. After three summers of hounding her about her work, I am now only gently reminding her. Her book report is not my responsibility. I can only remind her. She can do or not do it as she wishes – but there will be consequences for not doing it when she gets to school next week.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaait. I didn’t have to do that nonsense? Or shall I say, don’t have to chain my 1st grader to the table to complete it today since school starts tomorrow?
Yeah, we don’t do that in suburban dallas. As a librarian, what your kids need so as to not lose ground over the summer is 15 minutes of reading a day. Any reading. Comic books, magazines, etc. Did you require daily reading?
My second grader went off to school in suburban Dallas extremely glum this morning, since it just hit him that he will likely be the only one not getting special treats for finishing the packet. He was supposed to do all kinds of math and read 25 books and write responses about them. They don’t make it sound like it’s optional either. I reminded him about 20 times over the summer but didn’t force him because SUMMER. Now he’s mad. Oh well.
Hah! Maybe you are in a better part of suburban dallas? More affluent area? Less affluent area? HEB represent.
This is my philosophy about so many different things. From buying books instead of going to the library (I’m going to end up with that much money in fines anyway, why take my kids in and have to get pissed at them for being loud?) to getting milk delivery (I’m not going to remember to return the bottles so I might as well shell out for the delivery charge so I can return bottles in a cooler on my porch).
I’m happy that so far my kids don’t have summer work, perhaps this is a benefit of chicago public schools? ;-)
Wait, milk delivery?!
This was our first school summer, and I was surprised when a summer packet came home. We lightened up as the summer flew by… Every so often, I’d put the booklet out and say: do a page (or two). One thing I learned? He really likes math. All those were done. Writing? Not so much…
Oberweis does delivery in the Chicago, I have to admit it’s pretty great. :)
I used to buy these Summer Bridge Activity books with the plan that the boys & I would do a page a couple times a week. I laugh at myself now. :) The only time those books got used was on long car trips when they became ‘trivia’ books.
This year the rising 5th & 6th graders were given access to some math oriented learning website through the school to do over the summer. not required just suggested. The school has found the 5th grader’s preferred learning environment. He blew through the program in 3 weeks, while going to baseball practice or games 5 days a week. I never even knew he was doing it until the school emailed to ask if I wanted him to go on to the 6th grade program. He hasn’t made as much progress with it but he still works on it often.
The 6th grader has been on the site once and never again.
Ditto.
I generally try to accept myself as I am and not as I wish I were; for example, I finally admitted that I will not fold and put away my clothes if I have to walk around the bed from my side – where I change into my PJs – to my husband’s side, where my dresser is. I just will not do it. So I switched things around so my stuff that does not need to be washed every wearing is now in the chest at the end of the bed. Turns out I still usually won’t fold and put things away, but I do SOMETIMES vs NO TIMES, so I call it a win. I have lots of other examples of this, but I can’t think of them.
I remember your post about how your mom had structured activities for you and your brother during the summer, and I think of it sometimes and feel guilty. I don’t DO activities, but I feel bad about it.
So I would do workbooks etc. with the kids except they fight me tooth and nail on it and I don’t want school/learning to be a battle so I gave up on that idea. I did make the older one read with me and the younger one did some light Pre K stuff but mostly we had a fun summer. I harbor secret guilt for not doing more though.
Yes, Oldest is a rising 6th grader and only one summer did I do any kind of specific learning thing (other than reading every day which Oldest does for pleasure anyway, so really that doesn’t count). It was just before 4th grade and it became clear that Oldest didn’t really know his multiplication tables for the higher numbers. (I will save my rant about how much BS I think it is that they spent 3rd grade using “manipulatives” and really “understanding the process” of multiplication but didn’t ACTUALLY cram the multiplication tables at any point). I got a app for the iPad that basically ran through the upper multiplication tables like flashcards and every time Oldest wanted to have screen time, he had to do the app for 15 minutes first. He learned multiplication tables, I really did nothing other than download the app. Every other summer we’ve done nothing and it doesn’t seem to have been a problem.
My daughter spends the summer weekdays with my mother, who is a retired teacher. Together they crank out 30 minutes of reading at 30-45 minutes of online math homework per day. It’s just one of the MANY reasons I’m thankful for this arrangement, because I don’t have the temperament to teach, and certainly not my own child. We both end up in tears when we try.
There’s something to be said for just being a kid in the summer. My sister and I used to play school maybe once or twice during the summer, but we were the teachers in our imaginary school, and I don’t remember reviewing any skills. We were really great about letting our classes do crafts. :-)
Our teachers (Cedar Rapids, IA) sent home packets of suggested practice work for each kid. I included those things in the chore charts because I wanted them not to forget everything and it was one more thing for them to do to keep them out of my hair while I was working. They did other things like clean rooms, brush dogs, etc which they obviously liked better, but it was something else for the list and I felt like it couldn’t hurt. At most I would give the now first grader a writing prompt, like ‘my favorite food is…’ and she’d write a sentence or two and the now sixth grader mostly did math worksheets to keep her memory of the muliplication and division rules fresh. I’m not going to TEACH anything, but I don’t mind the packets..and I’m also not a stickler about how much of it gets done. They also both love to read so I never have to push that, in fact i had to stop bedtime reading because they’d forget to stop and go to sleep.
Schools here assign a small amount of summer work, so it is doable. I also let my kids practice math facts at thatquiz.org, because the thrill of doing it online makes them willing to spend 5-10 minutes on it.
For the most part, I try to leave Improving Activities to be something that happens by default, so they are allowed 20 minutes of screen time once a day, and only after they have read for an hour. Thank goodness it doesn’t matter what they read (I BELIEVE RACHEL), because it’s pretty much Big Nate and Calvin & Hobbes for the younger two.
I am thinking that next summer will be lightly sprinkled with Improving Activities. It could happen. Maybe.
Calvin and Hobbes is a terrific vocabulary builder! Plus they are reading more complexly because they are marrying text and picture. There are studies! believe!
They send home packets for summer now?! We never faced that; all we had was required reading. And, I’m fairly lucky in that my son is a Reader – but even then, it was a struggle to get him to do it because, apparently, if the reading was “Required” then he didn’t enjoy it. If I had to make him do packets, there would have been a full-scale war.
And – for what it’s worth – I am of the opinion that as long as the kids are reading – required or not – that goes a long way in their education.
As a teacher, I am pretending you did not just write that! That said, I did make my soon-to-be second grader do the work – but it was a terrible struggle! I had grand ideas of making him work to earn iPad time, but it turned out that I would struggle and force him to work for 20 minutes or so, three days a week. How can I make 25 third graders listen to me and work all day long and yet be ready to kill my own child after 10 minutes? I will never be able to understand homeschoolers. His reading was limited to Pokemon guides and, luckily, Calvin and Hobbes whenever we drove in the car. He did practice math, learn to borrow and carry and tell time, but that was mostly because he has an attention problem in school and I figured already knowing it might help. Plus, my teacher guilt overwhelmed me!
What bothers me about the idea of summer homework is that different things work for different kids. Some kids need the extra practice, but some kids get burned out if they don’t get a break from school work. Plus, most of the time the kids are so resentful about having to do work during their break that they only put minimal effort into it anyway. Some kids really do fall behind if they don’t do school work or tutoring during the summer, but that should be up to the parents to determine.
This is a thing that people do? I had to do summer prep for my AP classes before senior year of high school, but other than that, no homework during the summer. My how things have changed!
This made me feel better. As I was lying down with my three year old-because I can’t even get bedtime “right” -I started spinning myself up over my fifth grader. “Why didn’t I have him practice writing cursive this summer?” I should start writing him notes in cursive tomorrow morning! I will have to teach my second grader and eventually the three year old cursive… ” The cursive ball bearing boards are sitting on top of the fridge collecting dust. I ordered them around midnight from Amazon about a year ago during a more intense “fit”.
What is this nonsense? I’m a teacher in Ontario, Canada and we do not prepare summer packages of work for our students… That is crazy. My time is better spent planning for my teaching time, not giving parents a headache and trying to dictate what kids do in the summer… When they aren’t even my student anymore! Kids learn so much by living real life, which summer break lets them do. Reading should be a habit, and it is good to harness teachable moments (play a game with kids and let them do the math, etc), but that’s parenting anyway and shouldn’t need to be dictated by teachers. Family time matters, why make kids hate school by making their breaks miserable? Wow!! Good on you for making the right parenting choice for your kids.
What she said.
This summer I made the kids earn screen time and I had to order work books because they were so eager. By the time the workbooks got here, it was August, so not too much got done, but they have all voluntarily worked in them at some point of their own choice. More work then ever got done before and I got a chance to work on my 1st grader’s backwards numbers.
A multiplication App – I love that idea too, They have to do some math before playing games.
Since my youngest starts college tomorrow, I am finally free of these mean summer assignments. Our schools district does the dumbest summer reading program every year. Only the advanced classes have to read a book. In my opinion, it’s the bottom tier that should be doing extra reading. The kids in pre Ap and Ap can read. So – punish the top. Then – they used to give a test on the book on the first day of school. But – someone (parents who are lawyers) noticed that kids who transfer in over the summer didn’t have to read the book. This makes some students have less required coursework – which is against the rules. So now the smart kids are supposed to read a book over the summer, but can’t be tested on it for a few weeks. It’s just dumb.
I ditched all the non-mandatory parts of the packet the first week of summer, too.
But just yesterday I found a baggie with a rubber band, a popsicle stick and instructions for some kind of experiment we’ll never do in the junk drawer…