These nerves are fueled by a finding I read some time ago in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Outliers. One boundary breaking point Gladwell makes for us moms is that the difference in student test scores is mostly visible when the tests are given right after summer vacation. Those students who are engaged academically during the summer, score high. Those students who don’t have opportunities like that, suffer. Everyone makes progress during the school year, but then there are those pivotal summer months–and the cycle begins again.

What this means for me is deliberately planning our summer activities.  We can do a lot in three months to bolster our children’s education. Here are some things that have worked for us:

Summer University Majors  

Each summer, I help my girls choose a “summer university” major (and sometimes a minor) to focus on during the summer months. I tell them that this is their chance to explore topics and interest they don’t have time to explore in the school year.  Together we make a plan for how they plan to learn about this topic and brainstorm ideas for a “final project” such as a poster, a book, a work of art–anything they come up with. 

That might sound hard, but it isn’t really. For example, one summer my daughter wanted to “major” in Harry Potter. She read as many of the books as she could and did a final project by making a stand up poster about JK Rowling. Another time, a daughter wanted to “major” in the American Flag. At the end of the summer, she made a little American Flag fact book.  One summer, a daughter did something similar majoring in famous American women. They’ve also majored and minored in sewing, gymnastics, magic tricks, cooking, composers, writing fiction, and water coloring.

They are loosely “required” (it isn’t that strict of a university) to present their final project at a Sunday dinner at the end of the summer. 

Lots of Field Trips

Once I tutored a boy whose counselor had recommended he spend more time at the zoo, museums and other places to help him build his general knowledge of the world. The counselor said he needed more experiences to help him reference his learning. The more places our children visit and experiences they have, the more “hooks” they’ll have to hang new ideas in science and social studies and in all of their subjects. Thinking of it that way makes me more determined to be deliberate about scheduling summer field trips.  A great resource for summer field trips is Michelle Powell’s Enjoy Utah! website. I’ve lived here my whole life and discover all kinds of new places we need to visit from browsing her site.

Summer field trips work best for me when I commit with friends. One summer I got together with two other moms and we scheduled one field trip a week for our families to do together. This made the field trip interest level go up about 500 percent for my girls.

Summer Camps

For my children, summer camps have been an excellent way for them to discover new interests that they might never have had the chance to discover otherwise. I sing praises to University of Utah Youth Programs for introducing my oldest to film. It was her week long camp at the U of U’s Spyhop that opened up her interest in making movies.  It was a week long camp at the U of U’s art frenzy camp that introduced another daughter to her love for art. I am also a big fan of Write On! Workshops summer camp at Westminster College.  Many parents give this camp credit for helping their children develop their confidence as writers as well as giving a boost to children who are already passionate about writing and need a place to shine.  One other suggestion is to check out the myriad of affordable summer course listings in the  Granite Peaks Catalog.

You

Sometimes we overlook the fact that we as parents are one of the best resources our children have for learning and growth. It is easy for me to get into a frenzy of summer planning and not leave enough time for sitting on the lawn and reading library books together or working together to figure out what to do with all those summer tomatoes in the garden. Part of deliberate summer planning should also include leaving open time to just be together. We don’t have to “outsource” their whole summers. Our children can learn a lot from making dinner with us, riding bikes with us along the parkway, or having us sit next to them during a summer piano practice. Summer months are precious and the years where “true” summers exist for our children pass by quickly.  I hope to schedule (and unschedule) this time with great care.

More on Today’s Mama

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Praising What is Working: The Part We Sometimes Forget

Summer Writing Camp for Children and Teens

(Check out the hair on this mummy head!! Can you believe how awesome that is?!)

One thing that has always been very important to us as parents is spending quality time together as a family. I’m sure that most of you feel the same, but like us it can also be hard to find things to do that are fun and worth it. Utah is such an amazing place to live because there are things to do in every season, and we happen to have a great downtown area with lots of opportunities to play and learn with our kids. The Leonardo Museum is one of those places that absolutely every family should visit together at some point. Plus, right now there’s mummies! Mummies at the Leonardo is a new exhibit that runs to the end of May.

Our oldest is currently finishing up her year in first grade and a lot has changed this year. She’s so much more independent and we’ve already noticed that things are changing in our house. She feels older and doesn’t need us the same as our 2 year old does. This has really made us stop and think. We want to make sure that our children have strong relationships with us and each other. We’ve found that the more we spend time unplugged together, doing something fun and new, the better we relate and function as a family. Seriously, try it. Go do something cool together, educational is even better, and see how you are able to talk a little more and your day goes a little better. Hopefully down the road we can continue to grow together and stay closer even through the teenage years. (Yes, they scare me. I need these girls to know how much we love them and want to be together!)

Recently we had an opportunity to head up to the Mummies exhibit at the Leonardo Museum. Our kids are young, but oh my goodness they were excited. I was a little nervous that it would scare them, so we did take the time to talk about what a special experience this would be. We discussed that people have been on this earth for a very long time, and we would get to see how people lived differently and believed certain things about burying their dead etc. We were very respectful while there and made sure that our girls saw us only be fascinated and never grossed out or nervous. Children will follow your example most of the time if you put forth the effort.

It was fun to walk around and talk about what we were seeing. It was such a great night for our family. Can you believe that there’s a baby there from over 6,000 years ago?! That’s incredible!!  It was fascinating to think that these mummies were real people with lives, jobs to do, feelings, trials, loves, losses etc. I wish I could have asked them about their lives, stories and families. Learning about the past tells us so much about who we are and it’s such a great reminder about who we want to be in our lifetime because it is in fact such a short time.

If you have a chance, pay the money and go to the museum. Go for a date or with the kids. It’s worth every dime. When will you ever get the chance to see someone from thousands of years ago?

The Leonardo Museum

(801)531-9800

209 East 500 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111

I have totally been there and fretted about each of my daughters’ reading levels for different reasons. I worried that one daughter didn’t like to read the beginning reader books. For another, I worried that she could ONLY read the beginning reader books. And another daughter had me worried when her cousin was reading much faster than she was.

During these years of reading worry, I was lucky enough to discover Mem Fox. Her book Reading Magic: While Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever put all this worry into perspective and taught me to relax around books. Instead of stressing out, my best offense was to simply have a good time with my girls discovering awesome children’s books in our library.  In her Ten Read Aloud Commandments, Mem Fox says we should “never ever teach reading or get tense around books.”  Instead of pushing my children to “sound it out” and read “on this level,” I learned that our time together is better served just reading lots of books with great repetition, silly voices and, preferably, a blanket.

We need to do this often, even 1,000 times–because, Fox says, it takes at least 1,000 books before a child really takes off with reading. But we don’t stress out about the number. We just spend at least “10 wildly happy minutes” reading together every day. It’s amazing how the books add up when you are in the middle of being wildly happy.

Other tips that help joyfully and naturally raise a reader: 

• Never insist your beginning reader “sound it out.” If they are stumbling on a word, just hand it to them immediately.
• Recite lots and lots of nursery rhymes. If  a child knows several nursery rhymes by heart at age four, statistically they will be a fluent reader by age eight.  Once I learned this, I started reciting nursery rhymes to the rhythm of pushing my girls on the swings in the backyard and jumping on the trampoline. It worked.
• Make reading a reward. Never put reading on chore list or make it the “vegetables” part of the day before the fun starts.
• Fill your house with books. Take religious trips to the library. Find books at thrift stores, library book sales, book orders. When you discover a library book that your child wants to hear over and over again, order it from Amazon and keep reading it forever.
• Give your children lots of books. Make it a tradition to bring back books as souvenirs from trips and as gifts for birthdays and other holidays.
• Keep books in the car.  Fill road trip hours with more audio books and less DVD’s.
• Give your husband the newspaper and the pictures books. There is something about dads and reading. Statistically, a child has a much higher chance of becoming a life longer reader if Dad is a reader.
• Be a reader yourself. You count too.  A lot.
• Use your resources. Make full use of quality library story times and book clubs.

You can read all of Mem Fox’s Read Aloud Commandments here and discover lots more invaluable information that keeps teaching a child to read the  the joyful experience  it should be.

And by the way:

• Mem Fox is also a brilliant children’s book author. Just go to “Fox” on the JP shelves in your library and you’ll find lots of her picture books. Each one is a winner.
• I also love Jim Trelease’s Read Aloud Handbook.  A few minutes with this book leaves you desperate to read hours and hours to your child.  It’s a classic.

More on Today’s Mama:

 Mother Daughter Book Club

Road Trip: Don’t Forget the Books

Hungry to Connect With Your Teen? Reading Still Works

What am I saying?  It is an obsession.

We (unfortunately) own many “screens”:  big screens, tiny screens, screens of all sizes in-between.

I’m still unclear on whose idea this was originally, but it was a bad one.

In my opinion (and obviously being The Mom, I’m right), the only screens we should own are:

1- the large one in the family room where we watch family movies, documentaries, the accepted sit-com, and where I watch Downton Abbey and other Masterpiece Theatre productions while Scott takes a nice little nap.

2-  the laptop upon which I am currently writing, (ie:  my laptop.  No one else’s.  Just. Mine.)

Unfortunately this is not the case.  And the obsession appears to be growing.

Thus we initiated Screen Time.  It works (in theory) like this:

Child is expected to fill in his “to do’s” for the week.  For example, our just-turned-ten-year-old has the following duties:

*Feed dogs, chickens, parakeets.

*Help fill the dishwashers.

*Put away his laundry and tidy his room.

*Take his (rotated weekly) turn drying and putting away the pans.

*Vacuum the stairs weekly (twice a week during a good week.  Which seldom occurs).

*Put away “his stuff”.

*Complete all assigned schoolwork.

Now, to some people this seems like a list bordering on child labor.  Others claim it is sorely lacking and my children are doomed to become spoiled cretans believing the state owes them a living.

{My own wishy washy opinion lies somewhere in the middle.}

But to continue…  If said ten year old completes all of his assigned duties for the day he is allowed “screen time,” defined as any time before any screen, be it a computer, a television, or a video game.  Originally screen time was decided to consist of two hours per day; this was deemed to be a bit much for our obsessive/compulsive family and accordingly switched to one hour.

Saturday is a day unto itself.  If all obligations throughout the week have been fulfilled I proclaim “Let the Games Begin” around 6 p.m. or so and Saturday evening (for me at least) becomes amazingly quiet.  Sunday is “family time,” as is Wednesday evening, so Screen Time, aside from family movies, is banished and other types of chaos allowed to reign.

So far the “Screen Time” schedule is working quite well; for our ten year old at least.

Teenagers, as anyone blessed with one in their life knows, are an entity unto themselves.

Thus the Teenage Screen Time Schedule is still under construction and shall be revealed at a later date.

Until then, may your tight jeans always slide on easy and every day be a blessing!

The book was all checked out at the library and I didn’t have time to order it from Amazon, so I showed this Valentine story to my girls with YouTube on the big screen.  Hector Elizondo is an awesome storyteller. Big hit. I’ve never heard of Storyline Online, but I am a new fan.

Afterwards, we made plans to deliver our own “secret Valentines.” Everyone needs a secret admirer.

More on Today’s Mama

Ideas for Valentine Boxes

Ideas for the Class Valentine Party

Best Birthday Party Idea

My daughter with the jellyfish we made for Ocean Day

If you’re looking for a way to save money and connect with your child, maybe you should consider joining (or forming) a mother-run preschool co-op. For me, it has been fun to spend time with my little girl and her friends, and it has given me the motivation to prepare activities, crafts, and lessons that I might not have done otherwise. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

1. Establish a Group. You most likely already know several moms who would be interested in participating, so you just need to start asking. Ask your the parents of your child’s friends, her church class, the other kids you meet at story time at the library, etc. In my neighborhood, we have a group Facebook page, so I just posted something there and got lots of responses. You can determine the ideal size for your group, but I would recommend 4-6 kids. Remember that you will be the only mama in charge when it’s your turn to teach!

2. Set Up a Schedule. Decide the days and times you want your school to be. Also, decide how you will rotate through the teaching responsibility. Some people might like to do it by weeks, others by months. Any way is great as long as all members of the group feel good about it.

3. Decide On a Routine. Set up a routine for each day of preschool so that the kids always no what  to expect, no matter who is teaching that day. Gathering activities, circle time, songs, books, play time, snack, and craft time are all good things to include each day.

4. Determine the Curriculum. It’s important that each mom/teacher is on the same page when it comes to what lessons will be taught, even though each one will make it her own. For example, you might want to focus on one letter per week, and have additional themes to go along with that. The themes our group selected for this year are: All About Me, Fall, Food and Nutrition, Halloween, Birds, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Winter, Transportation, Community Helpers, Valentine’s Day, Ocean, Children of Other Lands, Spring, Easter, Farms, and Space. Pinterest is full of fun preschool ideas, but only search if you have hours to spend!

5. Set the Rules. What is important for your group? Do you want moms to let you know if their child isn’t going to be there that day? How will you handle days when the host mom (or her kids) get sick? How do you want discipline to be handled in the preschool? If you establish these things from the beginning, it will be easier to stick to them later on.

Most of all, remember that at this age, the best way children learn is through play. You want your child to be excited and happy to go to preschool each day, not to dread it because the workload is too great. Have a good time with your child and her friends, and you’ll be one happy teacher!

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Setting Up Your Own Summer Camp

I know we are still in the middle of winter, but savvy moms know this is the perfect time to start making plans for Utah summer camps.  One of our family’s favorite ways to spend the summer is attending the University of Utah Youth Education “Summerscool” programs.  When you sign up between February 16th and March 1st, you are automatically entered to win a free week of classes.

Never heard of Utah summer camps at the University of Utah?  Here are a few examples of what this program offers:

Last summer, my teenager took a Utah summer camp film class through the U at this amazing production studio for teens called Spy Hop. She and two other teens made a short documentary film about an art studio downtown that specializes in showcasing disabled artists. Seriously–where else could she have an experience like that?

My tween took a computer animation class where she created her own computer generated fairy tale comic strip. Hers was a Little Red Riding Hood spoof that featured Little Red and Granny defeating the wolf themselves through their own trickery. It was awesome.

There are also language classes, cooking classes, an anatomy class, Egyptian culture, fashion design, art–seriously something for every kid.

What’s more, University of Utah Youth Education also has a great writing program. There’s “Writing Magic” for the very young writer, “Writing Wizards” for the upper elementary grades and “Seize the Story” for middle school and high school students.

I think summer is a great time to let our kids dive in to areas they don’t get the chance to explore during the school year. The  University of Utah Youth Education offers the best selection and quality of any Utah summer camps I’ve found.

You might also find helpful:

Another Great Summer Writing Program for Kids

5 Reasons to Like University of Utah Youth Education

Finding the Right Preschool

We walked into the “fairy land” auditorium in the basement of the library. It had a fairy curtain, twinkling lights and fairy music.

The girls were each given a lanyard with their name on them. On the lanyard, they placed a “Night Fairy” button that Janelle had made. Each month, they will receive a new button for their lanyard to mark the new book club book. At the end of the school year, it will be a souvenir of lots of good reads and fun nights together.

Next, we were directed to make our own “fairy food” in little flower cup cake liners. There was a tiny fairy spoon and lots of little treats like bit of honey and, the Night Fairy’s favorite, sunflower seeds.

We also had “nectar” that we drank from fairy straws.

The book discussion started with basic questions like, “Where did the Night Fairy live?” and “How did she out-smart the spider?” When girls volunteered a right answer, they received some “pollen” (a pixie stick.)

My favorite part of the discussion were questions mothers and daughters had to discuss together: In The Night Fairy, we learn that a fairy’s magic is strongest at the time of day that she was born. Find out what time you were born. Does that explain anything about you? My 11 year old was born at 2 a.m. She is now convinced that is why she is such a night owl. My 9 year old was born at dinner time. We decided that is why she loves 6:00 soccer games.

After the discussion, it was time for fairy crafts. The girls made their own little fairies from pipe cleaner, feathers, embroidery thread, and flowers.

 Then they decorated bird houses like the one that the Night Fairy lived in. 

Finally, they put together fairy books with instructions on how to make fairy dust, a fairy boat, a fairy boat and fairy spells.Just for fun, Janelle also made each of them fairy book marks and had little stickers for their birdhouses that read: “Souvenir of Niagra Falls.” (It’s a little detail you understand when you read the book.) It was tricky to walk to the car without dropping anything.

On the way home, I talked to the girls about why I enjoyed the book so much. In the first chapter Flory, the night fairy, loses her wings. This is the absolute WORST thing that can happen to a fairy. But because of this trial she becomes kind and resourceful and discovers powers within herself she didn’t know she had.

“Sometimes bad things happen. And it stinks. But those are the times you find out you can do things you never knew you could.”

Silence.

“That’s cool Mom.”

This program is so popular, it is held two nights a month–one night for ages 7 to 8 year old’s and another for 9 to 12 year old’s. You can sign up online or in-person beginning the first day of each month. I am very biased towards Janelle at the Whitmore Library, but I know that they have the Mother-Daughter Book Club program in all the Salt Lake County Libraries.

If you have an elementary school age daughter, I wouldn’t miss these nights for anything.

One of the best ways I’ve found to encourage this is keeping a “summer journal.” Here are a few suggestions for making this work:

• Buy them cool journals and give them as a special gift. I have found the coolest blank books for under $5 at T.J. Maxx and Ross. They are unique and stitched and awesome. Composition books are about $2 at Walmart and also work well.These books are fun to decorate. You might also consider a stash of cool pens. Research says that children write faster and MORE with a pen in hand. Choose smooth pens over pencils.
• Make it a chore. Right next to “make the bed” on my children’s chore chart, I have listed, “write in your summer journal.” While I hate to make it a “chore,” if I don’t do it this way, the summer days slip away with no writing. This way, writing is on radar every single day. I am serious about raising a troupe of writers. I make it a must each day.
• Write together. Make this the one chore you do  together. This completely changes the dynamic from something “mom is making me do” to “something we do as a family.”
• Push them to select their own topics. Don’t tell them what to write about, just tell them what you are going to write about: “This morning I am going to write about the loud thunder I heard last night while I was trying to sleep.” And then let them come up with their own ideas. You can model more writing suggestions by saying, “I can’t decide if I should write about eating corn on the cob on the deck last night or the duck we saw in our yard,” but beware of the “topic welfare” trap where they depend on you for ideas. Show them that you trust and fully expect they will think of things to write about.  In this way, they will spend a summer more aware of what is going on around them.
• Make summer journal writing a daily ritual. The power in this activity is in the dailiness. If you do it once a week, they will complain. If you do it daily, they will look forward to it and complain if you dare miss it. (I’m serious.) I will bet you (at least $20) that if you do this regularly, you will hear “I’m going to write about that tomorrow” from at least one of your children. Most people have experiences. Writers re-live and cherish experiences through their writing. It is a joy to experience this with your children. They will be thinking through the day and night about what they are going to write about next.
• If you can’t do it everyday, concentrate the journal over a chunk of time. It can be effective and fun to do the summer journal over a week’s vacation to the beach or for the space of two weeks of quiet time at home. You’ll have more success over a sustained chunk of time than with sporadic summer journaling.
• If your children don’t write yet, it’s absolutely okay to be their scribe. Children become writers long before their motor skills allow them to write. Their stories are just floating around in the air. You can be the scribe and gather them up into a notebook. Children love to have their words “honored” this way. They love to have their words re-read to them. Plus, they begin to think like a writer and form their ideas into real stories. When the ideas are really coming fast, it can sometimes be easier to scribe by typing it out.
• Don’t stress about grammar and punctuation in their journal writing. Teach them the most important thing is getting down their ideas before they slip away. Often children’s worry over spelling and punctuation kills the idea. Let these books be free of this worry.
• Periodically, publish as a family. Once or twice this summer, announce that your family publishing company is calling for one story from each family member to publish in a family newspaper, on a family blog, in a letter to grandma (anything you can think of.) Let them select one of their summer journal entries to contribute. This will accomplish two important things. First, they will be challenged to evaluate their journal writings and select a topic that might be interesting to others. Second, they will have to edit their stories so others can best understand them. Don’t make the editing process hard, just consider their age and ability and select one or two things to work on. You might have them circle any words they think might be misspelled. You might have them check that there is a capital letter at the start of each sentence. Help them with a couple of things and then you do the rest of the editing for “free.” The goal always with young writers is to keep them writing. You want the publishing process to be exciting not discouraging. The more you let them be involved in the publishing process, the more excited they will be. If they can select a name for the family newspaper, or add illustrations, or decide who you are sending it to–all the better.
• Make the most of our time. We have hours these summer days that the school year takes from us. By keeping summer journals together, we can work to build this fluency and send our children back to school better prepared to face a new school year.

Next time: Summer learning: Easy ways to weave reading into summer days