Hi Meltingpot Readers,
Does your kid know where Kosovo is? Mine don't. They also get confused with the difference between a city and a state. On the other hand, my five-year old can name all five oceans and the seven continents. In other words, they're pretty much where they should be. But I think they could learn more about the world around them. And I don't want their brains to get mushy over the summer.
As a frustrated elementary school teacher (you know I have a degree in education) I look forward to summer because I get to "homeschool" my kids. Now for me homeschool in the summer means looking for exciting, educational things to do in our hometown. And of course, if the activities are free, even better. So we're going to the zoo (we have a membership), the Art Museum (on Free Sundays) and the library a lot. And my biggest coup? My older son is going to Arabic language and culture camp. He won a full scholarship for this awesome three-week camp. I can't believe our good luck and fortune.
What are you doing this summer with your kids or for yourself? Do you look to summer as a chance to learn something new or try a new class or something? My own summer project is to learn how to compost. I'm so excited. Yesterday I bought my composting bin and today I get started before the next heat wave hits. My kids want me to use worms, but I'm not ready for that yet. I'm doing barebones composting.
Maybe you just want to read a new book over the summer? About a topic that's new for you? To get you started, I'm giving away a hardcover copy of Katherine Patterson's latest, The Day of the Pelican. The book is a YA novel about an Albanian family living in Kosovo right before war breaks out in the '90s. It's a great book for older tweens and young teens. A great book to read aloud as a family and discuss. I enjoyed it a lot and learned so much about an ethnic conflict I never understood before.
Leave a comment about your summer 'educational' plans before midnight on Friday to be entered in the drawing for a copy of the book.
Here's to learning something new!
Peace!
5 comments:
we plan on hitting up some aquariums and museums before the summer is over
ykatrina at hotmail dot com
I'm working on learning Korean. I'll be teaching English at a private language institute in South Korea for an entire year by the end of the summer, so I'm trying to learn some basic expressions and words. It's a bit difficult and not as easy as learning Spanish.
Language camp sounds great. I had a lot of fun at language camp. I went to two when I was a teenager at Concordia Language Villages.
This summer I'm trying a little vegetable gardening. The lettuce didn't turn out but the tomatoes are coming along nicely.
And as always I'm looking for ways to practice Spanish/French and now a little portuguese. I've found a lot of websites to help with that. Although I should back into learning through reading.
I plan on doing more reading and finishing some of the books that I started a few months ago. I can always use another book to read.
I'm also a teacher, and I can't stress enough how important it is for kids to keep their minds active all summer. Personally, I plan to use the summer learning to be a better teacher (week long teaching institute..here I come!)
Check out this helpful article too:
http://socyberty.com/education/summer-learning-for-kids/
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