Teachers and parents alike want to prevent summer slide, which may be exacerbated this year by school closures. As a teacher, you want to give parents the tools they need to fill learning gaps. So do we. So we’ve created a short tip sheet to help you help parents this summer. 

Schedule 

Encourage parents to create a daily summer schedule. Children are accustomed to doing certain things at certain times during the school day. Of course, parents are juggling work, their children’s education, and the mounting stress of the pandemic, so encourage them to be kind to themselves and their kids when the day doesn’t go according to plan. They should think of their schedule as a guideline that can be adjusted as needed. Here’s a sample schedule to get parents started. 

Parent Letters

Provide parents with the “parent letters” available in each lesson. These letters explain to parents what their children are learning and why they are learning it. You can even assemble a small binder of parent letters from lessons that you planned to teach before COVID-19.

Tic-tac-toe

Do you teach K-2? If so, be sure to tell parents about the tic-tac-toe game in each K-2 parent letter. Tic-tac-toe comes with eight activities for parents and kids to do together. It’s a fun way for children to apply and demonstrate knowledge.

Quizzes

Send kids an assortment of quizzes to take at the end of each lesson. You can even encourage parents to collect the quizzes, so children can share them with their teacher at the beginning of the next school year. This will help their new teacher know what they worked on over the summer and how well they learned it. 

Conclusion                       

Summer, of course, isn’t just about closing learning gaps. It’s about spending time with family, running through sprinklers, camping out in the backyard, and eating lots and lots of ice cream. Students may hit the books more than usual this summer, but let’s all remember to relax and have fun, too.