2011
SUMMER
READING
AND
STUDENT WORK
REQUIREMENTS

GRADE FIVE

GRADE SIX

GRADE SEVEN

GRADE EIGHT

GRADE NINE

Suggestions for Summer Activities
The summer months offer many opportunities for each of us to learn about ourselves, our local community, and the world in which we live.
You may have heard of a more recent catch phrase in education called “summer learning loss.” The phrase refers to the loss of skills, content knowledge, and general concepts that some children experience during the summer months, a loss which often leads teachers to spend much time reviewing material in the fall before moving ahead with exploring new topics.
The teachers at Rising Tide talk often about how to best help students learn, and last year developed more ideas to combat “summer learning loss” and help students to continue thinking actively through the summer. There are some student requirements for student work which are listed on the school’s website; this required work is designed to integrate summer activities and school work and needs to be completed by the start of school. The following suggestions are intended to give families additional ideas to promote active thinking through the summer months.
You do not need to be a trained teacher to create teachable moments with your child! Most of the suggestions listed below involve having fun and learning from everyday activities. Any instances of observing, investigating, exploring, questioning and creating together can build wonderful shared experiences for family members in addition to supporting active thinking.

Suggestions:
Visit the library. Many local libraries have summer programs.

Visit an historic site or a museum together. Research together the time in history, the individuals, or the artists ahead of the visit.

Encourage your kids to actively use a sketchbook or journal through the summer.

Encourage your kids to be physically active through the summer. Regular physical activity is important in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and helps keep the mind active.

Read books together. Maybe even start a family book club. Initiate some discussion about the books you or your children are reading. After reading a book, rent or go see the movie version.

Notice and discuss mythological themes in other stories or plotlines. See if you can find references to Latin or classical themes in pop culture.

Get some audio books for long car trips.

Watch the news together as a family and discuss the events.

Share and/or discuss news or magazine articles that are accessible to kids.

Get out your atlas! Help your child be in charge of navigation on your next family trip.

Write a family travel log. Describe highlights and events.

Have your kids calculate the distance for a trip from the rate (speed limit) and time, or calculate the miles per gallon for the trip.

If you go running or biking, ask your kids to figure out your approximate speed based on how far you rode and how long it took.

Use a map of the U.S. to track all the places your favorite baseball team travels to over the summer.

If you have watched any of the World Cup soccer matches, identify on a map where each of the countries is located. Have your kids determine the time it would be reasonable to make a phone call to that part of the world.

Notice similarities between Latin and any Romance languages (especially Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian) you encounter (either while traveling, or on products or signs that are translated into multiple languages).

When watching sports, ask your kids to convert units of time (i.e. how many seconds in a basketball quarter), or estimate the final statistical performance of a player based on a portion of the game.

Play geography board games with your family. We suggest Scrambled States of America Game by Gamewright and Great States by International Playthings.

Notice Latin derivatives in language you see. Have your kids point them out.

Play word games. Scrabble, Balderdash, Upwards, Boggle, Apples to Apples, Bananagrams, Snatch It.

Notice Roman numerals (especially on cornerstones).

Write letters! Postcards to family and friends are fun. Help kids find penpals or keep in touch with friends. They can even write to their favorite celebrity – challenge them to get a reply.

Write stories together.

Cook together. Have your kids take responsibility for making the recipe and determining the proper measurements.

Design, and make or build something together (such as a doghouse, a sewn bag, etc.). Have your kids take responsibility for the creative ideas and the measurements.

With purchases, have your kids figure out the tax on an item before seeing the receipt.

When at the supermarket, give your child a small budget for one meal and have him or her be responsible for getting the groceries within that budget.

At a meal, have your kids figure out the tip.