Summer learning loss, aka summer slide, is a real thing. If you are a parent, you already know that your kids can lose a lot of ground over the summer if they don’t stay engaged in learning.

But how do you deal with summer slide?

We’ve partnered with Levar Burton Kids to bring you some fun ideas to prevent summer learning loss with your kids — even if school is about to start.

Teachers coined the phrase “summer slide,” and it happens every single year. Summer learning loss statistics can be frightening. Elementary school age children, on average, lose about two months’ worth of math skills and one month’s worth of reading and spelling over the course of summer break. 

But there’s a lot you can do to recover from the summer slide! And it doesn’t mean forcing your kids to grind their way through textbooks over the summer. Or hours and hours of specialty tutors once school is back in session.

Deal With Summer Learning Loss in Your Kids

Igniting your child’s love of learning can and should be fun! We all love summer break — sleeping in, vacations, too much ice cream, and lots of free play. Use those moments that make summer so special to ignite your child’s imagination and challenge them to use their brains in unique ways.

The experts at LeVar Burton Kids have tons of ideas for keeping your kids thinking, engaged and learning all year long to share with you, grab their best ideas absolutely free right here! 

• Have a Back to School Game Night! Levar Burton suggests using traditional board games as a way to involve your kids in counting and math – do this! Count the Monopoly Squares and name all the colors as you move your pieces around the board. Play Battleship (our personal favorite!) to work on logic and problem-solving. Don’t forget Connect Four for math and counting.
• Arrange seashells from your vacation from smallest to largest, or group them by color and texture — don’t forget to count as you go.
• Have them paint a picture of their favorite summer activity. Or journal their favorite summer memories with words and pictures.
• Do your kids love to cook? Invite them to do the measuring and stay to lick the bowl.
• Let your kids pick books they love and they will never know they are learning! Make time to read with them every day no matter their ages. Use Levar Burton’s Skybrary app to let kids explore books on their own. There is an endless supply of imagination and excitement inside Skybrary Digital Books.
• Have a family-wide reading challenge! Whoever spends the most time reading in a week gets to pick the ice cream flavor for Family Sundae Night.

Are you worried your kids might have lost skills due to summer slide this summer? Don’t panic! Recovering from Summer Slide may be the most fun you have all school year! Don’t forget to grab these ideas to conquer the summer slide.

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