Slides are cool and all but summer slide is not
Go up to an adult friend and ask them to do 256÷7 with long division. You’ll probably get a confused look and then something like, “I used to know that!”.
Use it or lose it right? It’s even possible to forget a whole language! So what happens to kids during the 3 month plus summer vacation? Let’s not debate how bad or how long lasting any summer slide is. The thing is, if we can easily help kids avoid it, why not do it?
Use Digital to Help Your Kids Keep Summer Slide in Check
We understand the importance of play and outdoor time during the summer. We’re not talking about turning kids into Jack of ‘all work and no play’ fame.
Kids can get their summer experience but at the same time, discover and create, question and keep skills they have learnt during the school year fresh. That way when back to school comes, there’s no nauseating lurch from 0 to 60mph. The problem is, this goal has simply been impractical to achieve.
We’re in the 21st century folks! We have super powers that parents and teachers of yesteryear couldn’t even dream of. Yes. The internet. Here are 3 practical tips for using it to put summer slide in check.
1. Sign Your Kids up For Varied Virtual Experiences
Where would you find an Emoji drawing club, or French Dessert making for 3 – 6 year olds, or an Origami class, or a How to make Bubbly Boba tea class? These are all real classes on Outschool.com and they are between $5 and $18 a class.
Outschool.com is not unique. You can easily find many unusual and exciting virtual experiences for kids of all ages. What are the odds that you could give your kids these experiences if they were only ever available in person? Between the cost of gas, the cost of summer camps and having to live in a magical place that offered the full variety, probably nil.
2. Turn Kids’ interests into Productive Screen Time
Kids are drawn to digital like flies to honey. Combine that with their own interests and drop some knowledge on them without them even knowing. Even if they try to throw you, (like a certain 8 year old who shall remain nameless), and say their interest is ‘poop’, take them up on it! Everything has some angle that can be used to teach. For our poop lover, an article on uses of dung for fertilizer, a podcast on the composition of the poop of different animals, a youtube video on what happens to poop in space.
3. Set Aside a Daily 5 – 10 Minute Enrichment Time
You read it right, every weekday or even everyday if you want to be generous to your kids. You’ve got to call it something cool like Astronaut Training, or Superstar Practice. Kids 7 to 10 may require an even cooler name but the point is, create a fixed, named time that the kids know is dedicated for them to mindfully do something productive and strive to make it fun too.
5 – 10 minutes a day is not long but if you don’t set a fixed time and have the kids able to do it all on their own, we all know it won’t happen. Early morning before the day gets into the full swing seems to work well.
So there you have it. Get the kids virtual experiences, turn their interests into learning and set aside enrichment time. That should keep the kids off the wrong type of slide.
You’re probably thinking, who would have the time to be managing all this? Aneta that’s who. Aneta was literally created to take the burden off grown ups who want to do digital right for kids. It’s exhausting enough to care for another living being. When it comes to how they use digital, let Aneta help you. Go on, keep that slide in check.
