Daily, with a few visits to the bookstore or local library (online or when they reopen) to retain reading skills and a love of reading. Join a kids’ book club (some of you already have one). Keep a log of your reading to show next year’s teacher. If you enjoyed “Turtle in Paradise” by Jennifer L. Holm, you might want to try the sequel, “Full O’ Beans.” You may want to practice reading on Raz-Kids. Your account will be accessible all summer (email me, Louise, if you want to level up!).

Keep a journal, write letters to friends and family, write stories, poems, and songs. Become a pen pal with a cousin or friend who lives far away. Work in your cursive journal until it is complete. Collect delicious words that you can add to your mini-journal for next year. Keep practicing your keyboarding skills on Typing Club.

Practice multiplication facts through the twelves. Practice telling time in context and as needed. Practice using money in real-life situations. Revisit and complete pages in your math workbooks or try a new page.

Go to Khan Academy for math review:

• Subtraction with regrouping
• Multiplying 2-digit numbers
• Division algorithm
• Introduction to Decimals
• Rewriting fractions as decimals
• Adding fractions with like denominators

When you buy classroom materials for fourth grade, have your child involved in the process, and familiar with the materials they bring in on the first day of school. Now is the time to think about your best working environment at home and set that space up with all the tools you need. This can work for doing projects at home, doing home-school connections, and/or working in a remote situation if that becomes a necessity.

Have play dates (actual or virtual) with different OGS students over the summer, especially next year’s fourth graders (kids your child doesn’t usually play with).

Schedule lots of “needs-nothing” time, with open space and no agenda. The summer is a time to connect as a family in a relaxed environment, enjoying being together!