5 Fun Activities to Prevent Summer Learning Loss and Boost Math Skills

Summer learning loss usually attributed to the summer slide or a setback for students in summer. Yes, summer learning loss is when students get back to school after summer vacation with a lower academic level than they possessed at the end of the previous school year.

We believe this happens when your child doesn’t use or practice the skills he or she studied at school during summer vacation. Yes, some studies propose kids may lose anywhere from 25-50% of their previous school-year gains in mathematics without practice for a long span.

So we believe, indulging your child with a variety of learning activities during their summer vacation is a great way to help your child stay ahead of the game, strengthen all areas of learning, and to prevent summer learning loss.

Summer days usually call for fun summer learning activities, playing games with cousins and spending time with loved ones. Some parents feel the time can be utilized to boost their child’s weaker capabilities - like those of math word problems. However, what’s the fun if all the summertime is spent in calculations, right? 

For this purpose, we have listed 5 fun summer learning activities that would not only help your child with summer math loss prevention tips but would also help you connect better as a family and create memories that you’d wear on your sleeve forever.

5 Fun Activities to Prevent Summer Learning Loss:

1. Encourage your child to play Board and Card Games
   Board games are not just fun because you’re together in it. They are fun because they bring along a vast knowledge of numbers and while your child might feel that he/she is having fun with the parents and other family members, there’s a lot of learning going on at the backend of the game. While it’s usually a tough job to teach maths to kids, this activity could be well of use. To help your child grasp a better sense of numerical applicability and probability, you would want to choose games that make efficient use of currency and require strategy while also keeping a score to keep your child highly motivated at all times. Some board games that could actually interest your child as well as help develop his/her brain are Monopoly, blackjack, Scrabble, chess.
   
2. Treats go a long way!
   Who said there weren't any maths in food? Cooking is not only makes everything super-fun but also helps one use a lot of mathematical skills. How? Well, if you follow a recipe to make a tasty treat for your kid, you are primarily involved in activities like measuring and counting. Encouraging your child to lend a helping hand in the kitchen could not only prepare them to be better cooks in the future but could also help them in calculations of each portion that goes into the masterpiece that they cook - thus helping their mathematical skills at large. You could start with simple child-friendly recipes that require small but significant measuring as well as counting steps so that your child can learn and have a healthy, tasty treat by the end of it - as a super-reward!!
   
3. Make efficient use of Music
   You're lucky if the society you live in encourages summer concerts because that would mean that you and child could head up for a little music after spending quality time at the park. While you might think about why we are suggesting Music as a way to learn mathematical skills, it would come as a surprise to most of you that Music and maths go hand in hand a long way. How? Well, the tunes you register in your mind are mathematically structured. And pattern theories have an important place in mathematics.
   There are a bunch of activities that you could help your child with to make him pass the time leisurely and to engage in fun family time. These activities might include asking your child to beat his/her hands along with a fine tune and dancing together to rhythmic tunes.
4. Train little entrepreneurs
   During our childhood, we have always had a liking towards a business that involved money, right? Hence, you could use the same trick for luring your children into fun activities that would, in the long run, help their mathematical minds churning. You could help your child in turning the fresh summertime that he/she has in hand into a small business that would not only engage them fruitfully but will also help the child learn some very essential accounting tips. While running a business, they would have a sense of whole figures, decimals and fractions which could not only improve your child's mathematical skills but could also help wake the future businessman/woman in them. Yes, simple summer businesses like car washing, lemonade stands or yard maintenance can motivate them to calculate the expenses and profits daily.
5. Let your child plan a trip
   While you're letting your child run a business, you can also help him/her plan a trip or a small outing and let him/her take charge of how much to spend and how to take care of all the expenses. This will help the child get a grip on the budgeting mathematics theory, while also giving him/her a taste of the real-life experiences.

Over the summer, we recommend students and parents to practice the above tips can observe exceptional strengthening and improvement in academic skills. And this can help you avoid deviating your child's two to three months from Math learning. You can also visit 98thPercentile for a few engaging math activities for kids, and can also opt for online courses for the coming year's maths syllabus. So, what are you waiting for? Book a free summer class for your kid now!