8 Fun Activities to Help Prevent the Dreaded Summer Slide in Kids

Summer slide, brain drain, skill slippage, summer learning loss. No matter what you call it, learning loss during school vacation is real—and so are its damaging effects. Studies cited by the National Summer Learning Association estimate that more than 50 percent of U.S. students experience summer learning loss. Spread across five years, some students can lose, on average, approximately 40 percent of academic advances. 

But learning loss can be prevented, with some effort and engagement on the part of grown-ups. Amita Gupta, Ed.D., professor of early childhood education at CUNY, recommends families use a schedule. “The planned experiences for children should serve to support their growth in four developmental domains (cognitive, social, emotional, and physical), and also address some academic content learning in literacy, social studies, math, and science. This may sound daunting to parents, but the good news is that several of these targets can be reached with a single activity or experience.” 

8 Activities Parents Can Do With Kids to Prevent Summer Learning Loss

1. Read books with your kids.

Reading “just four to six books during the summer has the potential to prevent a decline in reading achievement scores from the spring to the fall,” according to the Colorado Department of Education. The New York Public Library is offering tons of summer reading activities, and your local library likely has events and reading lists divided by age. Or stop by a local kids' bookstore to find your child's next summer read. Heighten the fun by having your kid start a virtual book club with a far-flung relative or friend. And remember the value of modeling. Kids tend to do as we do, not necessarily as we say. If you want to raise a reader, don’t forget to make time to read yourself.   

Need some book recommendations? Check out these roundups:

• LGBTQ+ books for kids, tweens, and teens
• Books by AAPI authors and starring AAPI characters
• Kids' books about women's history
• 125 books the NYPL loves for tweens and teens
• Kids' books about diversity, race, and inclusion
• Stories that star protagonists with special needs

2. Cook meals with your kids.

Cooking with your kids doesn’t just help your wallet—it helps your child’s brain. Use cooking as an opportunity to talk and learn about:

• Math: How much do you need of each ingredient? How many people are drinking soda? How many people are drinking milk? 
• Chemistry: What happens when you mix one ingredient with another? What happens when you add heat? 
• Human anatomy: Why does food taste the way it does? How do we convert food into energy? What happens to the calories or food we don’t need?
• Environmental sustainability: Where was this food grown? How, and by whom? How did it get from there to your table? 
• Culture: Why does your family eat what it eats? What kinds of foods did you grow up eating? How does food reinforce culture? What kinds of foods are common across cultures?  

Dial the conversation up or down, depending on your kid’s age and interest. Remember: It doesn’t have to be cooking. “Whatever the household chore—gardening, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning and organizing, taking a walk—can all be turned into experiences in sorting, classifying, sequencing, observing, predicting, sharing, helping, team building, and problem solving,” Dr. Gupta notes. 

3. Practice math skills in everyday situations.

Incorporating learning into your everyday life will help your child become a lifelong learner. It also reminds kids why fundamentals and facts are so important. 

At the grocery store, talk about what you could buy for $5 or $500. Discuss budgeting. Have a chat about wants versus needs. Point out different shapes to little kids. Teach tweens how credit cards work. And teenagers can learn about the magic of compound interest. Avoid falling into the all-too-common parent trap of saying “I’m terrible at math” by showing how much we all use math every single day.