School summer holidays are a great time for children to play free from the routine of having to go to school every weekday.
Some children drop back during the long break, whilst others do not. A gap begins to open which widens with each holiday (especially the long summer breaks).
Can any thing be done?
Yes
And it’s very easy, just spend a few minutes a day, a few days a week doing things were your children have to think a bit.
- Read a book
- Tell a story
- Play card games or board games (snakes and ladders or monopoly)
- Write a story
- Let your children work out how much money they need to buy some ice creams and what the change will be from £5
If your children don’t know all their times tables why not try and learn some or all of them!
Even if they just learn one new times table over the holiday that’s progress.
I like using physical things, for example
- If there are 5 stools and each has 3 legs on how many legs are there altogether?
- If there are 4 horses pulling a coach how many legs are there altogether?
Going to the beach gives more great opportunities
Collect pebbles in to groups, each with the same number in – then count the total number
Draw out a board of 10 x 10 squares (or 12 x 12) and number the squares 1 to 100 (or 1 to 144) and then let your children jump forwards 2, 3, 4 at a time playing a sort of numbers hopscotch.
Of course you don’t have to make square you could draw the numbers in a long line, on the back of a snake for example.
At SevenLittleMistakes.com there are more ideas in this post Are School Holidays Too Long.
To encourage you to spend some time with your children learning maths I’ve reduced the price of Starting Arithmetic and Times Tables From Starting Arithmetic by two/thirds during the summer holidays.
It’s not hard
It’s not complicated
It just needs doing regularly
After all if you never spoke to your children how good would they be at speaking?
And if you children already know all their times tables (well done!) there’s always more, for example
- Division
- Division with remainders
- Decimals and percentages
Have fun!