{School’s Out – What now?}
Whether you are a stay at home mom or a working mom, or maybe a teacher that is already thinking about next year, we can all agree that it is important to keep our child’s mind as active as they are during summer break. However, we can also agree… that is the opposite of an easy task!
Thankfully, through this lovely, Detroit mom of two, you can make learning and speech development fun! Jennifer is a speech therapist that works primarily with children from ages 2-10. She has developed her own blog that allows both parents and teachers to discuss and learn about our children’s learning and development. She also has great resources for purchasing and even winning your own tools to use at home with your children!
{Making speech therapy fun}
I had the privilege of speaking with this inspiring mommy to see just how she figured out ways to make learning and development fun! She too had some difficulty with her speech as a young girl, specifically, trouble with ‘r’ words. She has fond memories of truly enjoying the time she spent with her speech therapist and looked forward to all the fun she had with her. Jennifer also knew that she definitely wanted to work with kids, so viola! She followed her dream and is now an amazing speech therapist for young children!
One of her most recent posts highlights the importance of continuing speech development with children throughout the summer. She indicates that if you just routinely read to your child, or even just describe daily activities to them, it will continue to progress their speech development.
{A More Serious Note}
Summer learning loss is a HUGE problem for children, teachers, and parents! While I don’t think that children should not be allowed to have a summer, I do think that it is crucial to continue learning and development and find time to work with our children throughout the summer. The Huffington Post recently posted an article detailing the statistics of how summer learning loss affects children when returning to school. Over 65% of teachers surveyed noted that it takes 3-4 weeks at the beginning of each school year to reteach subject matter from the previous year.
Most parents are willing (and wanting) to get their children involved in summer camp. There are plenty of resources now available to get your children in summer programs that help their learning and development but are still fun! If you are on a budget and can’t swing paying for camps or programs, try doing some of the items the Huffington Post article suggested like a family book club, visiting the local library and city learning events, or even recruiting your little one as your summer event planner!
Either way you do it, summer learning can be so beneficial to our children, especially when it is so fun, they don’t realize they are doing it!
