Many of the ideas that I have shared with you throughout our summer Brain Drain series are excellent tools for your visual learner to use throughout the school year to reinforce those new concepts that they will inevitably be learning, and possibly having difficulty grasping.
Summer brain drain can amount to a significant learning loss, as much as 2 ½ months per student, with the biggest losses in math and reading. Consistent summer losses can cause a child to be 2 years behind their peers by 6th grade. By 9th grade, summer losses are considered responsible for 2/3 of the achievement gap. Let’s consider our visual kids. Many of them have already been struggling in school and can’t afford any leaks.
Do you have a kid that wants to spend their summer doing art? They want to build things. Make things. Draw things. Paint and color. All day. Every day. They just can’t seem to get enough. If this is your child, it sounds like you have what I affectionately call an ‘art kid’.
It’s common over the summer for the kids to lose some of those hard-earned handwriting skills that they practiced all year at school. With all the playing and creating, they may not get a lot of opportunities to physically write things down to stay in practice. We’ve made something great just for you. Well – for you and your young writer.
Recently there has a been a great push toward STEM; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. These fields of study are crucial in today’s business world. But, we really need to add an “A” for art, to make it complete and really reap the benefits of the innovation and creativity that being involved in the arts can produce.
Don’t forget to send the kids outside to play, create and innovate this summer.