Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post some favorite activities and games for keeping skills sharp over the summer months. Researchers have shown that “summer brain drain” is a big issue for children, especially for lower-income kids. Teachers have to spend weeks each school year getting kids back to their pre-summer skill levels. There are lots of fun ways to stave off “summer brain drain.”
During summer break, we continue to make time every day for reading. Cooper and Finley have a mandatory hour of “rest time” in the afternoon. They can play quietly or read books. At bedtime, they each read to me, and I read to them. Every time they finish a book, they get to log it in their Brilliant Reader Log Book.
I found these books at the dollar bin at Target a few weeks ago. For each book, kids get to write about their favorite characters and the best part of the book. There is space to draw a favorite scene. Then kids get to assign the book from one to ten stars. For my soon-to-be first-grader, the log doubles as handwriting practice.
How do you encourage summer reading? Does everyone in your house have mandatory reading time?
Kirsten W. Larson 
Ooh we just got three of those- one for each of my kids and one for me!
Perfect! I bought one for each child in my kindergartener’s class as a last-day-of-school present. 🙂
Great idea, Kirsten. I’m going to look for things to print out to keep them using their noggins. Matthew has really struggled this year. It’s so hard to pin him down to do some ‘work’
Catherine, I’ll have other ideas coming to make things fun. There are lots of games that build on skills they learn in school. I am working on a sight word Bingo game. My kids love Bingo.
Those are some nifty-lookin’ book logs!
And you can’t beat them for $1!
Cool! I have a huge reading log – my blog! 😉 I think it is a great idea for kids to keep track of what they read. I like that the log you got has a space for a mini review 🙂
I think “blog” is actually short for “web log,” exactly what you use yours for. 🙂
That makes sense! web + log = weblog = we blog! 😉