10 Ideas to Promote Daily Learning (And Stop Summer Learning Loss!)

Summer is upon us. School is ending and it's time to have fun and play and not even think about school, right?

Of course!

Then in three months we can all return to school with two months worth of learning loss!

Wait, what?

Yep, summer can be a real brain drain, but it doesn't have to be. And you don't have to turn your house into a summer camp or a temporary homeschool to stem the leak. The secret is in creating routines and a family culture that support everyday learning opportunities. As I've traversed this last year of homeschooling, I've realized that certain parts of my rhythm/routine do half the work of homeschooling for me. They're not hard, and I think they can work for you too. So without further ado.

10 Things You Can Do to Promote Daily Learning

1. Turn off the TV. You don't have to go screen free (though if you do, that's awesome) but try to limit this to no more than 1-2 hours per day. TV especially relieves our minds of actually thinking, increases risks of ADD in children, delays language development, and stunts creativity. Plus, it kind of just makes you feel blah and puts kids into a TV coma. Find something else to do during TV time. Here we've learned how to knit and played with lots of playdough to replace that hour of quiet time TV we used to have every day.

2. Make a weekly schedule of consistent activities. These do not have to be huge and they don't have to take up that much of your day. Actually, you'll really only stick to this if they're small. For us, Monday is painting, Tuesday is games, Wednesday is baking, and Friday is park day. I'm thinkng of making Thursday night music night and Sundays, "puzzle day." Other great ideas could be library day, playdough day, swimming day, golf day, biking day, somewhere new day, family history day, garden day. Really, the possibilities are endless. What you have to do is decide what you want to do and plan on it.

3. Plant a garden. I can't tell you how many learning opportunities have come from our little garden. The kids have learned all about bees and pollinating. They have watched it take place and witnessed the transfer of pollin. They've helped manually pollinate flowers, learned to identify male and female flowers, found ladybugs, seen aphids, understood the relationship, cheered on the arrival of butterflies, measured, harvested, tasted. It's one thing to learn about these things in a classroom, it's another to watch it actually happening.

4. Join or Create a summer reading program. Most libraries have a summer reading program. I remember doing one every summer back in Wyoming, even into high school my mom would take us into the library and make us create a really challenging reading goal. When I was younger it was 100 books in a summer. As I got older and was readingjust by myself, it was 25 novels. 25 novels in a summer is quite a bit of reading! And reading, for most people, is the very root of education and learning. A person who enjoys reading will always be learning something.

5. Have a real family devotional. Our family devotional has really become an important part of our homeschooling. Not just because the kids are learning scripture stories. We also learn a song each week and the sign language to go along with it. This only adds 1-2 minutes onto this nightly ritual, but what a learning experience it creates! If you have older kids you can really discuss and study scriptures together. Plus, devotional is just one more chance for kids to practice reading skills.

6. Play board games. A good board game will keep those math facts oiled and ready to go. There are all sorts of games and all sorts of different kinds of math to be learned from them. Starting with just counting, to using money, to multipliers, and lessons in calculating averages and chance.

7. Sing lots of songs. This is something I've started trying to do recently. We are inheritors of such huge collection of traditional songs. It's a shame that we don't pass more of these beautiful words and melodies along to our children. You can choose what sorts of songs to sing, but maybe before turning on Pandora you can all spend a few minutes in the morning singing a few rousing renditions of some of your favorites. Our favorite morning songs here are "Here Comes the Sun," "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," "Shanendoah," "Danny Boy," "Scarborough Fair," and last week I added, "Swing Low Sweet Chariot."

8.  Get outside. A lot! Send your kids outside for at least an hour a day, but preferrably more. During the hottest months of summer we actually do school so we can take a break in September. It's just too hot to spend much time out there. But we still try in the early morning and late evenings or with a constand stream of water running. One thing Jane and I have enjoyed doing outside is nature journaling. This improves art and writing skills, but it also just helps you slow down and admire the beauty all around you. There's so much to see and learn about outside, and just do with your body. Learning the limits of what your body can do is important to education and more and more research links learning and certain physical capabilities.

9. Have a reading time. Like I said before, I think reading is the most essential ingredient to learning, and I think it needs to happen every day. I also think the number one thing to get your kids reading is to not only read to them but to model reading for enjoyment. You want your kids to pick up a book? You better be picking up a book every day too! I find it easiest to do this with a set reading time. I always try to read as the kids play outside. Between eating lunch and naptime we have family read aloud time. Just having a set time makes it so it actually happens every day.

10. Talk with each other. Take the time to connect. You have all day together now! Your child's greatest teacher and influence truly can be you if you take the time to listen and respond.