Tips for getting kids back into school mode
Usually around this time of year, the Homewood Science Center near Chicago is full of school and camp groups learning about roller coasters and building with Legos. This summer, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the south suburban center has been offering at-home science activities to keep kids engaged.
The kits include printed instructions and supplies to create things like an aluminum foil boat to hold pennies, a butterfly life cycle model and a bird feeder from household containers. Homewood Science Center Executive Director Edie Dobrez said more than 8,000 kits have been distributed since March.
The idea was inspired by Kiwi Crates, the KiwiCo subscription service for science and art projects, Dobrez said.
“We wanted to democratize that, and that’s part of the problem,” she said. “It’s great if you have resources to go ahead and order something like that, but most people don’t have those resources, especially now.”
Even before the pandemic prompted school closures in the spring, education researchers were concerned about the so-called “summer slide,” a term used to describe skills and knowledge lost in the break between school years.
A study published last month in the American Educational Research Journal found 52% of U.S. students experience learning losses in the five summers between the first and sixth grades. The typical student loses 17% to 28% of school-year gains in English language arts and 25% to 34% of school-year gains in math during the following summer, according to the study, which analyzed more than 200 million test scores recorded between 2008 and 2016.
It’s too early to tell what this year’s summer slide numbers will look like, especially as schools, libraries, museums and other places kids may have gone to continue learning have been closed for at least part of the summer.
Education specialists suggest a number of ways to help get children back into the school routine, including frequently reading with them, incorporating math into their everyday activities and practicing skills they should already know.
“There (are) a lot of different websites where you can print out grade-level packets of math worksheets, and I think what I would recommend is to still use the ones from the previous grade. Those are the skills (kids) should have learned already, so that they’re not going to be as frustrated,” said Rachel Losoff, chairwoman of the school psychology department at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. “And then if parents find that they’re too easy, they can move up to the grade that they’re going into.”
Losoff also recommends carving out family reading time, where parents read to kids and vice versa. For math, Losoff suggests talking fractions while cooking or baking and pointing out how many miles per hour a car is traveling while driving.
Carol Pseno, of Inverness, said she has been reading with her 13-yearold daughter, Sophia, almost every night. So far this summer they have finished “Birdwing” by Rafe Martin; “The Railway Children” by Edith Nesbit; and “Nightbooks” by J.A. White. Richard Peck’s “A Long Way from Chicago” and “A Year Down Yonder” are also on the list.
The pair also practice math skills in the kitchen.
“We bake together, so with recipes, you’ve got half a cup, a full cup, that brings fractions into baking, cooking,” Carol Pseno said. “My daughter found a recipe for dog treats. We have a dog named Eggsy who’s a schnauzer, so she’ll whip up some pumpkin dog treats for him, and she does it all by herself.”