Do you have your kids do workbooks or similar in the summer?

[PrncessA]

I have never focused on school work during the summer until this summer, for completely different reasons for each child.

My kids read. Every night is at least 30 minutes to an hour of reading. My son likes to keep a book around him when we are in the car as well. They have a summer reading log that they have to complete to get a "prize" when they get back to school after the summer.

My son (10) is very gifted in math. He does about an hour online of math practice, nearly every day. Right now he is working about a grade and a half above his level and has started learning computer coding. He is ADHD so that hour is spent jumping around from area to area, it is chaotic to keep tabs on him.

My daughter (8) hates workbooks and online learning. She would rather draw or play. It is really hard to get her interested in anything academic, she spends about a half hour online doing math. She is going to summer school for the month of July because she is behind in school. We are trying to find what makes it fun for her.

 

[diznygirl]

No. Summer is our time to do all the stuff we don't have time to do because of school. It will be over too soon.

 

[Mizzoufan]

Only when they are annoying me.

Them: "I'm bored!"
Me: "You have hundreds of dollars of electronics. 3 bikes. 3 parks within walking/biking distance. Games and movies. Toys. Exercise equipment. A cat. Baby bunnies in the backyard. A Turtle. Dishes that need to be done. A bathroom that needs to be cleaned. Need I go on?"
Them: "But I did all that stuff alreadyyyyyyyy!!!"
Me: "go get that workbook on your desk and do three pages."
Them: "NOOOOOOO!!!!! I knew you would say that!!"
Me: "Then *why* did you come to me complaining????"
Them: "This is the worst summer ever!!"

I love working from home, but I can seriously do without that conversation on a daily basis.

Sounds like we could share kids lol

 

[mom2rtk]

Nope. We work hard and play hard.

I loved my down time in the summers as a kid and want my kids to have that too.

 

[deedeetoo]

When my kids were in the early grades we bought workbooks for them to do, but it turned into such s struggle that we gave it up. We both work so the kids were in camp all day. While its fun, its not really down time. In the evening they just wanted to relax, not do "homework".

Now that they are older there is no summer camp, but there are summer jobs and summer reading lists for school. In addition, my daughter has three AP courses next year, all of which have required work over the summer.

 

[hippiechicken]

My daughter is in college now, but when she was younger, I integrated real, authentic problem solving into her summer activities.
Not workbooks, but rather actual skills like calculating groceries and discounts, doing puzzles, visiting museums, reflecting on learning, and getting new books to read.

 

[joannamet]

Yes. DD is advanced so I use summer to introduce skills she'll need in the next grade. All elementary and middle school kids would benefit from some practice\review during the summer. A lot of academic progress is lost in 2+ months of downtime. It doesn't have to be workbooks. Reading and math computer games are free on the internet and fun too.

 

[fly girl]

We have summer reading through her school, but it's very little. My daughter loves to read, so a trip to the library is always a treat for her.


She has extra pages in her math workbook from last year. Her teacher asked all the kids to keep up and do at least a page a week. It literally takes her 5 minutes to do 2 pages. The nice thing is that she asked the kids to keep up with math so when I say let's do a page, dd complies!

 

[mamacatnv]

Never did the workbooks, threw them away
Summer is down time. When that final bell rang, the were free for the summer not relegated to a daily worksheet or reading list. Mine are both readers so reading was never forced even during the school year.

When they get to high school and summer projects/reading became a part of an elected class ie Honors/AP/IB class then yes, they chose to take the class, therefore they get to do the work. DD has a couple of books to read along with a few projects for her IB program.

My DS had a "required" reading assignment for his Freshman year of college. The Univ sent the book to all students - he didn't read it. Lo and behold he still graduated from college

 

[aprilgail]

Never did the workbooks, threw them away
Summer is down time. When that final bell rang, the were free for the summer not relegated to a daily worksheet or reading list. Mine are both readers so reading was never forced even during the school year.

When they get to high school and summer projects/reading became a part of an elected class ie Honors/AP/IB class then yes, they chose to take the class, therefore they get to do the work. DD has a couple of books to read along with a few projects for her IB program.

My DS had a "required" reading assignment for his Freshman year of college. The Univ sent the book to all students - he didn't read it. Lo and behold he still graduated from college

It is not only for "elected" classes here- regular classes have summer work too- the summer reading project counts as 40% of the first quarter English grade, if you don't do it there is no way to get a passing grade for that quarter even if you got 100's on every test!

 

[bsblady01]

Yes. DD is advanced so I use summer to introduce skills she'll need in the next grade. All elementary and middle school kids would benefit from some practice\review during the summer. A lot of academic progress is lost in 2+ months of downtime. It doesn't have to be workbooks. Reading and math computer games are free on the internet and fun too.

that is what I have my kids do, the games are fun and educational at the same time

 

[clori]

I did workbooks a bit more with my oldest say k-4 but mostly because she loved math workbooks. My youngest wasn't as interested and I probably stopped after 2nd grade. Both girls will occasionally go on math sites (well not sure about dd15 at this point) such as coolmath without prompting. They also both read plenty. Since youngest dd is finishing 5th grade and learned a lot about American History and we live near Boston we may visit some historical sites. She has probably been to them all but now that she knows more it may be more interesting. For instance now that she knows more about taxation without representation I thin she will enjoy the Boston tea party museum. We have a membership to the Museum of Science.

At a minimum, the high school has summer math and English assignments for all students entering grades 9-12. K-8 always has summer reading and usually math plus when they go to their homeroom on the last day of school and meet the teachers for the next year they can get specific class assignments. I would love to have my youngest work a bit on her cursive writing since she doesn't really now all the letters that well. My oldest probably could benefit from doing some Spanish review even though she does well in class.

 

[MommyMK]

Nope. Academics aren't everything.

 

[MSLRAC]

Nope, we just continue with nightly reading and Xtra Math on the computer like they do through out the school year.

 

[Neesy228]

We do a family summer reading challenge. Most pages at the end of summer wins a prize.

Other than that, we squeeze every minute of fun that we can out of our summer. We travel, swim, stay up late, sleep in, watch movies, ride bikes, do crafts, act silly and eat ice cream as much as possible! They have 83 days of summer vacation this year...after 10.5 months of school, I think they deserve a little down time to just be kids.

 

[mtemm]

Thanks all! Love the various perspectives, am weighing all of them. Kids don't get out till next week so have some time to think on it.

 

[anniemae]

We do not do workbooks. I do have the kids sign up for the summer reading program at our library. They read books and get prizes for a certain number of books they read. I have them read for about 30 minuets a day.

 

[SEA333]

Yes. DD is advanced so I use summer to introduce skills she'll need in the next grade. All elementary and middle school kids would benefit from some practice\review during the summer. A lot of academic progress is lost in 2+ months of downtime. It doesn't have to be workbooks. Reading and math computer games are free on the internet and fun too.

I don't think it's a bad thing to do what you are doing. My DS15 is gifted in math, and is in all advanced/honors/AP classes in high school. He still needs his down time. I give him this for 3 weeks in the summer between school getting out and football camps starting back up. During the school year, he is away from home from 6am-5:30pm every day and on game days or track meet days he is gone longer.

We always have to remember that our kids are kids, first, and students/athletes/artists/etc second. It's OK to have downtime during childhood. Hopefully you are also getting your DD out there to experience the world...or at least your neighborhood!

 

[Nohal]

No. Summer is for fun. Both of my boys played baseball all summer. And travel soccer started beginning of August. Getting them to do their work during the school year was frustrating enough. They both graduated high school and college and have good jobs. So having the summers off didn't hurt them at all.

 

[Dizlvr]

No. If my kids had struggled through school I probably would have given them things to work on over the summer but since they were all good students I let their summer be free of school work.
Now they are older, my 2 ds's are taking some honors classes and will have summer projects, my dd is still in HS but taking college courses and has a reading/writing project for English Comp.