Heritage Elementary School knows the importance of continued learning over the summer break. Academic studies have shown that students can, on average, lose about a month or more of scholastic skills over summer break if they aren’t encouraged to keep their minds active.* That’s why the rapidly growing Glendale charter school is offering simple suggestions for parents looking to keep kids’ minds active and engaged during the lazy, laid-back days of summer.

Write on. Suggest a summer memories journal. Writing about their summer experiences allows kids to practice their handwriting, spelling, grammar and writing skills. Plus, they have a diary that they can keep and later look back at fondly. Encourage kids to add drawings or photos with handwritten or typed captions to the journal for added fun and creativity.

Get growing. Garden with your kids. Gardening in the backyard, a window box or clay pots on the patio offers a great opportunity to discuss natural science with them, from the parts of a flower to photosynthesis to harmful and helpful insects. It is also a good chance to talk to kids about sustainability and green living.

Make room for math. Find shapes all around you and count the sides with your kids. The car windshield is a rectangle with four sides. A slice of pizza is a triangle with three sides. Practice conversions while cooking or baking: convert teaspoons to tablespoons, cups to pints. Add and subtract at snack time. If you have six apple slices and you eat four, how many are left? If you and two friends each have 12 snack crackers, how many crackers are there altogether?

Spell it out. Spelling skills can be practiced just about anywhere. Play a game of “I Spy” with your children during a shopping excursion or road trip, but spell the answers. I spy something yellow. Is it a b-a-n-a-n-a? When you get home, see how many words they can remember spelling and have them write them out on paper. Hold a spelling bee at the end of the week, with a small prize for spelling all of the words correctly.

Reward reading. Keep kids reading with summer reading programs at the local library or with the Scholastic Summer Reading Program (www.scholastic.com/summer), an online program where kids log the amount of time or pages they read and earn prizes for their efforts.

Make memories. A memory box project puts kids’ creativity and writing skills to work while providing a personalized place for organizing and keeping childhood mementos. Have your kids decorate a shoe box or other container with paper, stickers, ribbons, sequins or other decorations. Fill the box with memories from the past school year or the summer, such as event tickets, prize ribbons, photographs, postcards, shells, poems, artwork and more. Encourage your child to make a list with a sentence or two about what each item means to him or her. Keep the list in the box.

Practicing academic skills over the summer can be easy and fun when blended with daily activities or turned into a game or project. Parents are encouraged to share their www.facebook.com/hesglendale.

To learn more about Heritage Elementary School, a tuition-free, character-based charter school in Glendale, Arizona, please visit www.hesglendale.org.

*The Case Against Summer Vacation, Time Magazine, July 2010
www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2005654,00.html.

About Heritage Elementary School
Heritage Elementary School, founded in 2002, is one of Arizona’s fastest-growing charter school systems. The tuition-free, character-based charter school is home to two campuses, one in Glendale and one in Williams, and serves more than 1,000 students in preschool through eighth grade. Both the Glendale and Williams locations offer bus/van transportation. Students that go to Williams are offered a 5-day school week, while traditional schools in the area have been cut back to 4 days. Raena Janes, an active advocate for Arizona education and charter schools, is the superintendent of Heritage Elementary School. Visit the school’s website online at http://www.hesglendale.org.