Do your kids do summer workbooks?

[Magpie]

I don't buy workbooks, but I'll still be keeping them busy.

My daughter - the ONLY one of my kids with any hope of becoming bilingual - will be required to keep up with 15 minutes daily of French, using our Rosetta Stone software.

My son has hopes of getting into the Jazz Band in Grade 8. But there's only 3 openings and it's very competitive. So he'll be practicing every single day and I've got his name at the music school in for any tutoring opportunities that come up. An hour of instruction here or there... hopefully it'll be enough combined with lots of practice at home.

 

[::Snow_White::]

I've never had any work that I had to do during the summer. I do try and keep myself busy with reading and finding scholarships for college. Our teachers gave myself and 2 friends 8 literature textbooks that they didn't need anymore. We split them up so I try and go through those and take notes over the summer since I want to major in literature/english. I like that you can study at your own pace in the summer and you're trying to learn as much as you can without worrying about grades.

 

[castleview]

I don't make them, although I do buy them with the intention of making them

That would be me. I'm all gung ho in the beginning and it peters out quickly. The school does require a math packet and summer reading projects and they do them without complaining.

 

[mickeylove2]

Our school distrubutes them at the end of the year (optional) and they are designed to do 2 pages a day for the entire summer. Every child that returns a completed workbook at the beginning of the new school year gets to attend a pizza party. My girls love doing them and usually get them done within the 1st couple of weeks of summer, I don't have any rules set aside for them. My youngest DD has summer school though so she's got a lot more to do than her older sister, but then again, olderst DD loves to read and spends hours and hours a day at the library.

 

[browneyes106]

I don't have any kids. But when I was growing up until I was in the 6th grade my mom would give me workbooks to do over the summer. She let me do them at my own pace. Sometimes I would go a week or two without working on them. But I used to do more reading than the workbooks.

 

[ilovejack02]

I bought our first one this year.. going into 3rd. The school gave out workbooks, first come first serve, I missed out. I bought the same one they gave out.

We havent started yet, vacation first week, camp invention ( math and science camp) and VBS this week. I have been making him read a bit. Will hop on it next week. I really want him to keep up with his math skills so we will for sure work on math drill sheets. Won't make him work more than maybe 15 mins on worksheets and 30 mins on reading.

I like mathfactcafe.com for keeping math skills sharp.

 

[ilovejack02]

Our school distrubutes them at the end of the year (optional) and they are designed to do 2 pages a day for the entire summer. Every child that returns a completed workbook at the beginning of the new school year gets to attend a pizza party. My girls love doing them and usually get them done within the 1st couple of weeks of summer, I don't have any rules set aside for them. My youngest DD has summer school though so she's got a lot more to do than her older sister, but then again, olderst DD loves to read and spends hours and hours a day at the library.

I love love love this!!! Will suggest to our school, they are really good about listening to parent ideas.

 

[mickeylove2]

I love love love this!!! Will suggest to our school, they are really good about listening to parent ideas.

I believe the actual workbook is called Kids Learn, if you were interested. They are great.

 

[kellyg403]

This is an interesting thread! I have been wondering about this very thing! I never really 'made' the kids do much in the way of workbooks in the summer when they were younger, they all did read a lot and we always went to the library but workbooks per se, never. Now that grandd is living with us, and having difficulty retaining information, I am wondering if I should do some workbooks on a schedule of some type. Just so any skills she has retained are not lost. She won't like it, does not like school and anything associated with it...even at 8. So, I have been taking the cowards way out and 'thinking' about it and not doing it!

Kelly

 

[kinntj]

My upcoming 1st grader doesn't do workbooks. She'll do reading and answer questions about the books she reads. She does adding and subtraction problems on the white board when I give them to her. That's it.

My upcoming 3rd grader does have last years math book to work on and next years math book. These books are the actual ones used in the classrooms. We buy copies and keep these at home. This keeps her up to speed and a little ahead. We never let her see the tests ahead of time. We give her a separate test we write up and has similar problems on it that we change the #'s around.

Plus she does timed (1 and 5 minute) adding, subtraction and multiplication tests.

 

[Disnydad]

Mine did reading, writing and math workbooks every day, every summer. They are both off in college now (with academic scholarships).

 

[C.Ann]

When my kids were little, we would spend the entire summer up here at the lake - arriving on the last day of school and not returning home until the day before school started again in September..

I wanted to keep their skills sharp - and even possibly a bit ahead - so I would go out in search of workbooks covering the assorted subjects prior to the end of the school year..

However, I never made it seem like they were being "forced" to do school work during the summer.. I made a game out of it and basically we would "play school" every day.. I had a chalk board; stickers; crayons; scissors; construction paper; glue; etc. - so the "fun" stuff was included with the "learning".. They loved it - and never gave me any grief about doing "school work".. (As they got a bit older (out of the crayon phase), I would also incorporate various educational board games - such as: "Know The U.S.A."; "Go To The Head Of The Class"; "History Trivia"; etc..)

We didn't have a "set" time each day - it really was based on what other activities we were going to be engaged in - but at one point or another, we would always schedule in the time to "play school"..

I think if you make it more like playing - and less like still being in school - your kids will be much more receptive to it..

 

[aprilgail2]

Our school distrubutes them at the end of the year (optional) and they are designed to do 2 pages a day for the entire summer. Every child that returns a completed workbook at the beginning of the new school year gets to attend a pizza party. .

A pizza party sure wouldn't make a difference to my kid- she would laugh and say its not worth it for a piece of pizza LOL.

 

[dreamer17555]

Well I feel like a mean mom. I make Cat work on school work (flash cards, workbooks, reading, journaling) one hours worth a day. I also make her do chores and she dances (some 10 hours a week) and besides the time she is at the studio she is also expected to do an hour or so of practice or conditioning at home... still with all that she has been in the pool at least every other day and spends several hours running around with her friends. She does best when she is busy. She isn't much into TV.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I do summer "homeschool" with my son (going into second grade) we mostly just do reading, journaling, and some enrichment stuff. Oh, and he does some math papers for fun. He loves math.

Forgot the second half of the question: I just tell my son we have to do it and he does it. Some days he'll ask if we can skip it. Sometimes (not very often) I say ok and others I say no. Getting him to clean his room is another story.

 

[luvsJack]

No workbooks here. She spends one week in VBS, one week (this week in fact) at church camp, and will spend another week on a church youth trip. In between those, she spends a week with her cousins (my inlaws), going to the beach and to a local water park.

In the evenings we work in the garden. She helps me put up veggies and is learning to cook this summer. And has plans to spend a couple of weeks volunteering at the Humane Society with a friend of hers.

To us summer is a good time to learn other kinds of things. She does read books of her choosing all summer.

And this summer she is helping to tutor another friend of hers that has been homeschooled but it wanting to start back to school in the fall and her mother is afriad she is behind a bit. So she will be doing more school work this summer than she ever has before.

 

[pandora174]

For DS we got him last year for 1rst grade & again this summer for 2nd grade Hooked on Phonics super workbook that covers spelling, math, phonics etc. He likes it, it has a certificate & stars. He does about 4 to 5 pages a day. I circle them & he works on them throughout the day at his pace. I just ask that I expect it to be done before dinner. He also reads daily but that's his choice but I make sure he has plenty of books around

His school has a small packet that he'll work on 2 weeks before school starts that include about 13 pages of math, spelling, phonics & a 5 sentence book report to turn in on the first day of school. I feel that his skills are sharpened this way. I am a little more cautious since DS was a preemie & was in Special Ed in pre-k, pulled out an hour a day in Kinder & 1rst Grade & now he's going to be 100 % mainstreamed for 2nd grade so this also builds up his self confidence.

DS loves school so it's a breeze & a blessing tht he enjoys the school work. He still has PLENTY of time for X-Box, DS, cartoons, bike riding, playing in the yard etc. He's 7 & he has tons of energy & I find with my DS that he needs a more structured environment & DH & I have a more relaxed summer

 

[HeatherC]

No work here. Mommy loves summer fun time. And all 3 kids are "A" students so I'm not too concerned about it.

 

[Pigeon]

Kids learn through play. There is ample research which supports this. They get far too little play during the school year because they are always doing homework.

So no, we don't normally do busywork during the summer. They read a great deal and we do entertaining enrichment stuff like going to museums and historical sites. But no way on earth I'd make them look at one more idiotic worksheet.

My kids are straight A students and dh is a public school teacher.

 

[Magic Mom]

Kids learn through play. There is ample research which supports this. They get far too little play during the school year because they are always doing homework.

So no, we don't normally do busywork during the summer. They read a great deal and we do entertaining enrichment stuff like going to museums and historical sites. But no way on earth I'd make them look at one more idiotic worksheet.

My kids are straight A students and dh is a public school teacher.

There is also ample research to support that kids can lose up to 25% of what they have learned the previous year during the months away from school. My child is an A/B student and for her the worksheets aren't idiotic. Consider yourself lucky that your kids don't slide. I consider myself lucky that DD can do some schoolwork during the summer and still have a great time.