This year more than ever I am looking with a nervous eye at the Summer Slide effect. To keep learning interesting we mix in lots of activities that can employ language skills, but aren’t worksheets (although I am totally on board with a worksheet now and then because I am a tired working parent). Lots of apps and sites like Educreations had generous free upgrades this year for teachers during the school shutdown, so we used those at home, too.

Keeping things educational in quarantine wasn’t so bad when we used our own backyard and a homemade journal to record observations of animals and plants all around us. An example I made in my bullet journal is above, you can see my son’s journal as you view the slides below. When the boys found a critter to research we relied on Capstone, Epic and other kid friendly research sources to annotate our drawings with new learning. Then we tried out educreations to share our learning with friends. Click on the image to see/hear an example. Working on ideas for the next project now…the backyard animals want us to go away.