It is almost too late for these great ideas because school starts soon, along with test prep and the certainty that the test will slap a label on your child and a number.
G.F. Brandenburg has a list of activities that will help your child develop as a resourceful human being.
If it is too late for this year, there are always weekends and holidays and next summer.
Protect your child’s childhood!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
uh, move to Finland ?
My daughters had “summer math time” where we didn’t do a single computation but explored the axioms and proofs of algebra starting from “zero exists”. I mixed in stories of famous mathematicians – Pascal and his famous sister, Einstien and Gödel friendship, Galois’ tragic life – along with the reasons WHY math works instead of HOW. They enjoyed it along with the occasional s’more during discussions.
Protect Your Child’s Childhood! could become a slogan and a list that is continually updated. Rather than make parents cross-eyed with an avalanche of technical debate on the standardization and privatization, why not begin re-introducing “lists” that describe where we should be headed with everyone’s child.
Wealthy parents are as confused as impoverished parents. Now we have a new generation of parents arriving at school doors who have been indoctrinated by 20 years worth of tests, narrowed and hollowed out curriculum experiences and competition for school admission based entirely on test performance that amounts to nothing more than an uneducated human with the “right” numeral written across her forehead.
My oldest daughter and her husband earn enough money to afford several vacations a year, sometimes during the school year. While I encourage good attendance at school, how can our education system compete with a cruise to the Bahamas or a trip to San Diego. Over the summer they spent a long weekend in Toronto and also went camping with a couple other families. My grand daughter prefers riding her bicycle and playing with her friends to structured day care programs. She did go to Girl Scout camp for a couple of weeks. School is a struggle for her as she has a hard time sitting and paying attention for long periods of time. She takes forever to complete her homework as she is easily distracted, yet outside testing shows she is quite intelligent and a good problem solver. She starts 6th grade in September. That’s soon enough to start her struggles. I say let her enjoy these last few weeks.
Love the ideas; actually, I try to remind parents to make sure that their child has plenty of time to just enjoy life as a kid over the summer. School starts tomorrow in Alabama!
Ha! Here in NYC my son, who will be in first grade this year, was given daily reading, writing and math homework. He is supposed to complete it and turn it in on the first day of school. We have done the reading and math, but I didn’t force the writing because he hates it! I don’t want him to hate school before he turns six. Also toured a pre-school for my younger son where they proudly told me that they give homework to 2 year olds. I had to point out that research shows it does not improve learning. Kids need more time to do the stuff on this list!
I loved the comments at the end of the article. As a kid, I babysat for the two beautiful girls across the street. They caught fireflies and let them out in their bedroom when the lights were out:) Have fun!!!!
I’m pleased to see that I have done a bunch of those things this summer with my daughter. Living somewhere rural helps.
Still more TV and Xbox happening than I would like though…