by Nicole
It was great while it lasted.
My kids have floated through the past six weeks in a haze. Baseball…camp…lazy afternoons at the beach…meandering bike rides…sleepovers… day trips. It’s been an idyllic summer.
But today, the party is just a tiny bit over. I’m not talking about heading back to school; we’ve still got a couple weeks to go for that. This bright sunny morning they are being made miserable by nothing other than their summer math packets.
Along with suggested reading lists, our school district provides grade-appropriate worksheets to sharpen students’ math skills over the summer. This helps stem “summer slide,” where even good students lose academic ground, particularly in math. Unlike summer reading—which is a beloved tradition in our house—summer math often leaves me feeling like a taskmaster. One year I actually scrapped the packets altogether and spent the summer teaching them card games. Yes, my boys learned their addition facts playing Black Jack. (more…)