Summer Bingo or How we Prevent the Summer Slide

Let's be honest. As a homeschooling momma, if I allow my kids to participate in the summer slide, the main person I'm hurting is myself. While I sometimes have dreams of abandoning all educational efforts for a full three months, I know that it wouldn't be worth it when we start school again and my kids have forgotten all of those math facts and spelling words that we worked so hard on committing to memory.

I also know that throwing workbooks and drills their way when they believe they should be solely building forts, playing in the backyard, and swimming, will result in my burning out on home educating.

So my answer to this dilemma (no school vs. burning out on year-round school) is to try to make summer maintenance fun (or at least tolerable). Enter Summer Bingo.

As yet another Shower of Roses inspired activity in our home, Summer Bingo consists of the kids earning tickets, which they can trade in for rewards, for completing tasks on their bingo card. Here are the rules:

This set up gives the kids a chance to earn 10 tickets per week... and an AMC stands for "Augustyn Movie Center". Augustyn is my maiden name and it's something my mom did as a teacher. We turn the house into a theater with a ticket booth and concession stand... it's basically family movie night on steroids.

The vast majority of tasks on our cards are school based. You could include chores or fun activities (like draw with chalk or blow bubbles), but we have a separate system for chores and summer fun (which I haven't posted on yet... what can I say, I like systems).

Here is Bean's card (Age 7/8):

Some clarification on a few tasks:

• 20 minutes of Spanish: Rosetta Stone
• Reading Eggspress and Skills Bank: Reading Eggs
• Read today's Saint: Saints for Young Readers for Every Day
• Math and Word Quick Quizzes: Dollar Spot at Target
• Summer Bridge: Workbook (They have to complete all 5 lessons for the week to earn the sticker.)
• Keyword Outlines and Compositions refers to the Institute for Excellence in Writing method

Here is Pal's card (age 5):

Some clarification on a few tasks:

• Dry erase numbers and ABCs: Kumon
• Alphabet Bingo: Target Dollar Spot
• 100 Easy Lessons
• Cutting Activity: Kumon (This is a little more girly than I had hoped, but it's super fun.)
• Reading Eggs and Math Seeds: Reading Eggs
• Sight word cards: Uh, garage sale?
• Summer Bridge: Workbook (They have to complete all 5 lessons for the week to earn the sticker.)

Our little method worked last summer, so I'm hoping it will work again this summer!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa