Having Fun and Being Academic This Summer

We try to give you tips that are helpful, interesting, and a little less formal than regular school.

 

Starting this summer, 
it's time to have some FUN!

What I'm going to suggest to you may not look like it's very academic (from Stowell Learning Center). In fact, it may look (at times) just silly.

But it's meant to be fun while also working on many learning skills.

Go to your local bookstore and buy the book Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith. Or get it from Amazon. (No, I don't make any money from this.)
This is a wonderful, fun, irreverent, creative, out-of-the box project(s) you can do with your kids. Yes even older kids will like this!

If you haven't seen it, this is a 96 page paperback book with an instruction about what to do on each page. Here are some examples:

• Document your dinner. Rub, smear, splatter your food. Use this page as a napkin.
• Collect your pocket lint. Glue it here.
• Infuse this page with a smell of your choosing (hmmm...something boys and girls may have very different ideas about!)
• Tear this page out. Put it in your pocket. Put it through the wash. Stick it back in.
• Scribble wildly using only borrowed pens (document where they were borrowed from)

It goes on and on. It's silly, and fun, and requires you to let go and use your imagination. Oh, and to break most rules you live with at school!

What's the value?
Besides fun, it's about reading, following directions, figuring out how to do the activities, thinking, breaking out of "the mold," imagining, interpreting, and experimenting.

The nice thing is, there is no wrong way to do any of it.

You can use it as a reward or just go crazy with it all day long. Or do one or two activities each day. It's really up to you.

This can also be really fun project to do together. Parents and kids will get a lot of joy from discovering how each other might approach any one page.

Despite the fun, it's a really good way to develop thinking skills while "thumbing your nose" at convention.