This post is directed to your parents and may mean work for you over the Summer… Do you hate me yet…?!! 🙂

This list of suggested activities that I have put together is NOT a requirement from either myself or 6^th grade. However, both students and parents (and teachers!) recognise that many students take a backward step in their learning if they do not continue to review and consolidate… Here are a few activity suggestions and websites that are fun and keep them ticking over…:

MATHS

• Encourage real life problem solving all the time – get your child to read flight schedules, bus timetables, TV & cinema times; get them to mentally add up the contents of their shopping trolley or total their scores on the computer games they are playing; encourage them to see shapes within buildings, patterns, and estimate distances. EVERYTHING has a link to Maths – whether it’s cooking, playing, eating, socialising, travelling, there is ALWAYS an element of Maths…
• Visit http://mathletics.co.uk/  (you have your own password!)
• Visit one of the following free sites to practice skills that they want/need to practice:

http://www.numbernut.com/        http://www.factfreaks.com/           http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/        http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/   http://www.coolmath4kids.com/

• Encourage them to play games such as Chess, Sudoku, Scrabble, Triolet. They all have a link to Maths AND are sociable too.

LANGUAGE

• Encourage them to write a diary, journal or even a blog of events, thoughts and opinions. They could choose to share or keep it to themselves BUT this gives them a great reason for writing. http://g5dragons.edublogs.org/ is still open for business – they may want to share what they are doing with others through this blog.
• READ READ READ!!! Vocabulary, imagination, experience, maturity, writing! All these skills and attitudes are improved by reading – and they should want to so allow them to choose the book/comic/magazine (within reason!). If you need suggestions try: http://www.readkiddoread.com/ or look at this post…
• Visit http://www.scholastic.com/summerreading/ – this is an excellent global challenge that might give them the reason to read!
• Encourage them to do wordsearches, crosswords, anagrams AND play social games like Scrabble, Upwords, Texttwist etc

INQUIRY

• Continue to keep up to date with current events around the world – have discussions over dinner/breakfast and ask for their opinion – you will be surprised at how much they know and the insight they have on world events
• What are they passionate about? What do they want to find out more about? If they have questions, don’t just tell them the answer – encourage them to find out the answer themselves by doing a little bit of research in an encyclopedia or on the web.
• Have a look at the Delicious links on the sidebar OR visit these sites to practice general knowledge and map skills:

http://geosense.net/          http://www.howstuffworks.com/     http://www.tigweb.org/games/flag/    http://purposegames.net/

TECHNOLOGY (*with guidance from parents where necessary*)

• Make your own blog – use http://bfcb.edublogs.org/ (my own site – for teachers BUT students can use it too! Sorry it’s not been updated for a while BUT I’ve been busy teaching 🙂 !!)
• Try out a new web 2.0 application: http://www.prezi.com/        http://animoto.com/           http://www.xtranormal.com/                                                                                                                                                                            and there’s many more out there!

And of course – be balanced! Have fun, get lots of exercise, interact with others, make new friends, spend time with family and… RELAX!

Have a great break – keep in touch 🙂

Mr Potts