The End is Here!!!

          It’s hard to believe, but 1^st grade is already over! We had a great year together and now it’s time to be off to 2^nd grade. As your students enjoy the relaxing months of summer, here are a few suggestions to help keep their hard-earned skills fresh. These are all things that are fun and educational at the same time.

• Check your local library and bookstore. Many of them have fun story times and read-a-thons (as well as art and crafts projects) over the summer. Many students love challenging themselves to read a certain number of books.
• Build a shoebox or backyard habitat. Students learned about where different animals live. Help them extend that skill by choosing an animal, researching its needs and natural habitat and building a representation of that habitat. It’s a great chance for children to be creative while cementing a science concept from the year. Have them practice writing with a Five Ws poem (who, what, when, where, why?) or an all-about book to go with their research.
• Get practice writing personal narratives by having your child summarize an outing that you go on during the summer. It could be a family vacation or a trip to the park. Help your student to remember that a good story has a beginning, middle, end, and that descriptions with juicy details help keep a reader interested. Have him/her write a journal entry every day, anything at all – something they’ve done or wished they could do. Use it to brainstorm a list of things you all want to accomplish together over the summer – places to go, cooking projects to try, sprinklers to run in, etc. Keeping up writing skills over the summer will be crucial to 2^nd grade. Postcards can be fun too! Pick up one from each of your little outings and have them write to a class mate or relative or me! When writing is more authentic it is more fun.
• Play games! There are many games that can be fun while still keeping the brain active. Scrabble, Boggle, Smath, Set, & Quirkle  are a few common ones that are great to keep students thinking. There are dozens of great games to be found by visiting your local toy store, teacher supply store, or just going online to find out how to make your own games. Many can be made with household materials you may have just lying around. It’s a fun way to help your student stay engaged without it seeming like work. The students’ math journals have many of their favorite math games in them -instructions and all – look in the bags that went home. Also,
• Play beach ball math (toss a ball back and forth; the tosser says the number sentence, e.g. 5+9; the receiver says the answer).
• Game sticks are also a great way to get those math facts down. Gather 10-20 popsicle sticks. Color one side. Drop the sticks. Say a number sentence that matches the colored sides showing + plain sides showing. Say the answer.
• Cook together. Although we don’t work on fractions in 1^st grade, they do come up in 2^nd, and you can give your child a good head start by practicing measuring and showing your child how two of the half cups can fill the one cup. Talk about why that works. You might be surprised at how easily these concepts are learned in real-life situations compared to artificially trying to force the concept of fractions and measuring with books and worksheets.
• Practice telling time over the summer. Have your child help you make a schedule for the day and they can tell you what the clock will look like when it’s time for something fun!
• Let your child pay any time you use cash. Talk about how much you & they expect to spend on your purchases, how much money is needed to pay, how much change is expected in change, etc. Help your child save up for an inexpensive summer treat – maybe the ice cream truck that drives down your street – can your child calculate how many times s/he needs to take out the trash or set the table for a nickel or dime to save up enough for $1.20 popsicle?
• Check out the web sites of the various museums we have in the Bay Area such as the Children’s Discovery Museum or the Exploratorium. Many of them will have special days in the summer where the cost is reduced or even free. Visit some of the great fountains in our county (and write about it later). There are so many resources in our area!
• The 1^st grade web site has links to a plethora of local museums and activities. Check out the Kids Corner – Just for Fun – Art web sites - Student and Parent resources.
• Go to a park. Collect rocks or leaves while hiking or playing and practice addition and subtraction with them before you go. Look for geometric shapes in nature. Try visiting a different park each week – there are so many! Lots of them have interesting fountains and different play structures. Ride the miniature train and the old carousel at Oak Meadow Park (next to Vasona in Los Gatos). Participate in a summer program at YSI at Vasona Park. Explore the creek and waterfalls at Uvas Canyon County Park.
• Collect flowers in the back yard and pound them with a hammer between paper to make a beautiful everlasting bouquet.
• ***NEW*** Check out this list at Reading Rockets: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/391

Thanks for an awesome year, have a great summer, and please don’t be strangers in the fall!    

Danielle DeRome