Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Kids can lose up to two to three months of their reading and math skills over the summer, according to the National Summer Learning Association. These losses come at an even greater cost for kids in low-income families, who can fall two-and-a-half to three years behind their peers due to summer learning loss.
Both teachers and parents can do more to encourage kids to continue learning over the summer. Especially because young girls lose interest in STEM at around age 8, the summer is the perfect time to introduce STEM to girls in a fun and innovative way. By incorporating STEM-related topics into summer activities, teachers and parents can help to decrease summer learning loss and increase their kids’ interest in STEM.
How to incorporate STEM-learning into your summer fun:
- Read. Reading is a great way for kids to keep their minds active over summer. Teachers can offer summer reading lists for age-appropriate suggestions or parents can bring their kids to their local library. Often, local libraries will offer summer reading programs for kids and will use prizes to keep kids engaged. Another option is to get your kid a magazine subscription, to give them new content to look forward to throughout the summer. Check out this great STEM-related magazine, Smore, targeted towards girls ages 7 and up. This magazine is a great option for young girls interested in STEM, providing them with encouragement, role models, and even a pull-out poster in each issue.
- Play. When thinking about buying toys for your kid this summer, try to select STEM-related ones that will keep your kid’s brain stimulated for hours. One awesome toy to check out is the award-winning littleBits Droid Inventor Kit — perfect for Star Wars fans. Kids can create their own Droid and bring it to life through easy block-based coding. By using the Droid inventor app, kids can control their droid, give it new abilities, and take it on over 22 missions. Kids can continue to invent with this toy all summer long.
- Attend a camp. Summer camps are the perfect way to get your kid excited about STEM and immerse them into a fun learning environment. TryEngineering offers two-week engineering camps for 8th to 12th graders at colleges and universities across the United States throughout July. This is a perfect way for students to learn more about engineering, get hands-on experience, meet new friends with similar interests, and become inspired by professional engineers.