Ask The Expert: How Can I Keep My Child Academically Engaged This Summer?

We asked Veronica Verdino, director of FasTracKids in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn how we can keep kids engaged in learning through the summer months, and how the gradual separation teaching style at FasTracKids can help enrich children academically.

Besides enrolling my elementary-school-aged child in enrichment classes, how can I keep her academically engaged during the summer months?

It’s a good idea to expose your child to as many different things as possible at an early age. Museums and children’s events are excellent. I took my own daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because there’s a lot of stuff to do for kids there and it’s very very engaging and interesting.

Keep in mind that exposure to different things is very important so that your child has a well-rounded education. At our center we do astronomy, we do biology at the kids’ developmental level, but it shouldn’t just be science that they’re exposed to. The important thing is to focus on things they are curious about. Maybe they’re going to learn about butterflies. Maybe when they observe something in nature they’ll want to go to the library and get a book and further expand that curiosity. That’s why you need to expose them to as much as possible.

Be very observant when it comes to your child. See what they play and introduce new toys, because children tend to play with the same thing over and over again and they get bored quickly. Any time you buy a toy it should be really educational. And before you just let the child play with that toy you should definitely show them how the toy should be used. A lot of parents say they buy toys but the kids don’t play with them. “We have so many toys at home but the kids don’t play. Why?” Because the kids don’t know how to play with the new toys. Sometimes they need company to play with certain toys. So it’s a good idea to sit down and demonstrate how the toy should be played, keep the child company, play together.

Definitely limit TV for sure because that’s not really encouraging the child’s thinking.

Expose children to a lot of new things, buy educational toys, and demonstrate to the child. Be very observant of your child, listen to the child, to their interests and what they want to do, but sometimes parents listen to them too much, because the children don’t know. You have to keep kids occupied and show them the world because they don’t know much yet. When I say, “listen to the child,” I don’t mean if the child wants something just give it to them, I mean be observant of what kind of child you have.