Summer Homework

On Mother’s Day I asked my kids to tell me 2 things I do good and 1 thing I can improve on. My 18 year old son thanked me for teaching him how to read when he was 4 and thanked me for giving him the support to try anything he wanted try.
Sometimes you do so many things for your kids and don’t know if they care. This was nice to hear. Before I go on, you are probably wondering what I could improve on right? OK….he said I can get too uptight. (He’s probably right.)
My kids get pretty good grades. The only thing I have done to help, is to teach them to read before they went to school and do homework packets every summer. I thought some of you might be interested. (It takes all of one day and they are done for the whole summer)

Here are the packets I have been putting together today. I make a packet for each of my kids that take them about 15 minutes to complete. I make 1 packet per day, per kid, for the summer.
The day after school gets out I give them math facts tests and spelling tests. I do the math orally and whatever they hesitate on goes on the sheets. Then I type it up, make copies, and staple each day. The math facts worksheets and spelling lists are made for each child so they only work on the things they don’t know.
Here are the things I put in the packets.
Preschool
Tracing things so they are able to control their pencil
Simple dot to dots so they learn to count and write
Writing numbers 1-10
Then 1-100
Trace abc’s
Simple words dog, cat, dad, mom
Elementary
Writing numbers 1-1000 they are able to understand how numbers progress
Name piano notes
States and Capitols
Spelling words
Cursive (tracing)
Multiplication tables
Math facts (add, subtract, multiply, divide)
Junior High
Spanish words
Prime numbers
Memorize adverbs
Memorize prepositions
Memorize scriptures
Square roots
Spelling words (20 per week that they write 5 times each per day)
I also get those big curriculum books at Costco that is grade appropriate and tear some of those pages out.
When school starts my daughter is taking Spanish. I found some great links that have the words, plus the audio. I am going to have her do one link per day. Here is a sample:

Listen to each day 5 times
Day 1 http://www.spanicity.com/Spanish-Vocabulary/House/House.htm
Day 2 http://www.spanicity.com/Spanish-Vocabulary/Food-vegetables/Vegetable.htm
Day 3 http://www.spanicity.com/Spanish-Alphabet/spanish-alphabet.htm
Day 4 http://www.spanicity.com/numbers/cardinal-numbers-01.htm
Day 5 http://www.spanicity.com/Phrases/Courtesy/Courtesy.htm
Day 6 http://www.spanicity.com/Phrases/Greetings/Greetings.htm
Day 7 http://www.spanicity.com/Phrases/Meeting_People/Meeting_People.htm

If you have any questions about this don’t hesitate to leave me a comment and I will give you more details. I have done it for years and I think it has really paid off.