As lovely as it is to have a long summer break, relaxing and taking time away from school, it can be difficult to get back into the groove when the countdown to school begins. The summer slump “a phenomenon that refers to the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the course of the summer holidays. It’s a cumulative process, gradually creating a wider gap in learning each year” can sneak up on you and make you feel unprepared for your return to school. In this blog post, we will take you through some handy tips to conquer the summer slump and get that brain working at full speed again!
Getting yourself out of the summer slump doesn’t mean writing an essay or tackling a tricky maths quiz, it can be as simple as doing a crossword or starting a craft project. Let’s make learning fun!
STEM learning
There are so many exciting and fun experiments to create in your own home, you don’t need to have a lab and fancy equipment to be a scientist or an engineer. Here are a few ideas that use household items and ingredients from your kitchen cupboards.
Why not have a go at making your own volcano. Using any cup or beaker (or if you are feeling extra creative build your own paper mache volcano) fill the container with just a little baking soda. In another container, mix orange, red or yellow food colouring with vinegar. Make sure your container is in a nice big tray or bucket, it’s about to get messy! Then pour the vinegar mixture into the container with the baking soda and watch your homemade volcano erupt!
Experiment with forces and weights when engineering your own zipline out of Lego bricks. Attach some string or even a shoelace to the top of a cupboard or somewhere high up and the other end to your coffee table or somewhere lower, to create the perfect mini zipline. Now it’s time to use your engineering skills to build a pod that is light enough not to fall and study enough to hold different items in. See how much weight your pod can hold and have a go at timing it to see which item gets down to the bottom the fastest.
Getting structure back into your day
It can be hard to get back into a routine after having every day free and under no time constraints, but setting a few things into your day can help so much when it I time to get back into the routine of school.
Make sure bedtime is around the same time every night and wake up around the same time every morning so that it doesn’t come as such a shock when you suddenly have to get up early in the morning.
A daily/weekly chore can help the brain adjust from having endless free time, to having a few jobs that need to be done whether you really enjoy them or not.
Learning from Example
As many parents will know from previous homework battles, when a child feels forced into learning and doesn’t enjoy the work, there is hardly any point in trying. This is why it is important to make summer learning fun and interactive. Set an example for your children, paint, bake, create, play, tackle a puzzle, and get outside yourself and get them to join in with tasks you are doing. Your children will soon see that learning can be fun and something enjoyed by the whole family. Learning doesn’t have to mean sitting in front of the computer or reading from a textbook.
