Beyond Textbooks: Engaging Ways to Keep Your Child Learning All Summer

Summer Educational Opportunities with Your Child

The summer brings with it a total change in students’ schedules, obligations, and more. Because of this, summer is the perfect time to explore educational opportunities with your child that are totally different from the formal, highly structured environment of school. It’s a chance for your student to learn in a totally different way than what they’re likely used to—in fact, it might not feel like learning at all. Below, we’ll explore some of the options for educational things you can do with your student this summer.^{1}

Public library events

Public libraries are fantastic sources of educational programming. During summers, in particular, they often put on events tailored to specific age groups. However, even if your library has few or no such events, you can still make use of their resources with your child. You could, for example, have a family book club, which would give space to discuss things relevant to your student. 

Local history

Local historical societies and history museums are underrated treasure troves. They often offer classroom resources that you can use at home, information about sites around your area, exhibitions of local history, and more. Visiting a local historically important site or a local history museum with your child can be a great introduction to history: how it’s studied, what it means, and how it affects the present.

Local outings

On a similar note, your nearby surroundings likely offer many educational opportunities that you can find with only a little bit of searching! Everything from art and natural science museums to zoos and aquariums. Many of these institutions offer additional educational information and programming online. 

Spending time in nature

Even in major metropolitan areas like Chicago, the natural world is all around and relatively accessible. Many sites (like state or national parks) have their own websites or visitor centers with information, but if you’re somewhere a bit less structured, certain apps can help. Merlin Bird ID and Audubon Birds offer resources for birdwatching; iNaturalist and Leafsnap are apps designed to help users identify species and learn more about them; and SkyView and SkySafari are both guides for amateur astronomy. 

Math activities

If your child is more interested in math, you can nurture that skill and spend time with them in a number of ways. Financial planning or starting a small side business like a lemonade stand can be an introductory lesson in economics and financial planning. Watching sports together can be an opportunity to learn about statistics. For example, Nate Silver, the statistician behind FiveThirtyEight, started his career as a sabermetrician (baseball statistics analyst).

Volunteering

This option is not strictly educational, but its value cannot be overstated. Not only does volunteering foster a sense of community togetherness, it also often teaches valuable skills like empathy and kindness and widens a child’s worldview. What’s more, a history of volunteering looks very good on college applications. If done alongside your student, it can be a valuable opportunity to connect with them and with the broader community.

All of the above activities give you an opportunity to connect with your child and nourish their curiosity. Ultimately, the impact of any of these ideas will depend on your student. It’s important to allow them to play an active role in crafting their own summer. Voluntary summer programs tend to have better outcomes than compulsory ones. College (and life beyond college) also entails a ton of unstructured time that your child will need to be able to thrive within, and building those skills early on is crucial. 

¹ The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine published a report in 2019 on the different types of youth summer experiences and their impacts. Much of this text is derived from their observations and the many studies they cite. This report is an important reference for anyone interested in reading in more detail about the types of summer programs, evidence for their effectiveness, the impact of socioeconomic factors, and more. See “Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth,” available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31940162/ and https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25546/shaping-summertime-experiences-opportunities-to-promote-healthy-development-and-well.