Summer Brain Drain

From Shannon Eis on May 21st, 2010

I’ve sat through three parent sessions this week at my daughter’s school that dealt with “summer brain drain” and how to keep kids from losing 30% of what teachers worked hard all year to cram into their little brains. And while some of the information was useful, very little of it took into account that kids actually need and deserve some time off. I was also struck by “fun activity” recommendations they offered parents for keeping kids’ minds engaged all summer. I’m pretty sure that my daughter would not, in fact, enjoy me dumping her LEGOs all over the floor so that she can count them as she cleans them up.

For my part, I’m not running to the bookstore to snatch up subject workbooks for my incoming first grader to be tortured over all summer. But I will spend some time talking to her (vocabulary building) during a day trip that I’ll let her map out (geo-literacy) to visit a national monument (history/social studies) where she and her brother will explore with wild summer abandon (recess).

Sometimes the best learning moments are disguised as fun.

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  • Kevin Bannwolf
    Shannon, saw your report about the "Summer Brain Drain." I think my company has found a solution that help these young students retain their academics during the summer months...it is called Pass2Play.
    Pass2Play is the first rewards-based parental control system that requires students to do age appropriate educational content to earn playtime on the computer and Internet. Here's how it works...
    Before my son is allowed to go online and play with his friend via Club Penguin or network socially, the Pass2Play application takes control of his computer desktop and immediately redirects him to academic content (currently Pearson). Once there he must complete some math exercises before he is allowed to go online and play with his friends. At selected intervals, as decided by the parent, the student user is redirected to the educational content to complete more math problems. This process continues for as long as the child uses the computer.
    Check out our company at www.pass2play.com and see if you think it will help with the "Summer Brain Drain." We recently did a Beta test with Pearson and our results might surprise you.

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