It is hard to believe that it is time to be thinking about summer and school will be out soon. Summer is always a welcoming time of the year. We get a chance to get out and be active one thing about summer however while it?s a great to have a break and let kids just be kids and get out a play and do different things as parents we need to be aware that kids can lose almost 50% of what they have learned during the school year. There are a lot of easy ways to help ensure this doesn?t happen without the kids feeling like your drilling it into their heads.  A really good way that I use quit often with my kids during the summer is letting them read for a few minutes each night before bedtime. Even if they read 10 to 15 minutes a day will keep their mind active and help retain what they have learned during the school year.  Also another good thing to do is check with your local library they often have a good resource of different things for the kids to do as well as a summer reading program. A  project we like to do  during the summer is we let each one of the kids make a scrapbook then can either take pictures or draw a picture and then they write a little story or a couple of short sentences  then helps with both their reading and writing.  A good way to help with retaining numbers playing an old fashion game of marbles, hopscotch is another excellent numbers game. Card games are a lot of fun too this helps with counting. There are all kinds of fun ways to keep kids learning and their mind active during the summer. It doesn?t have to be something that is drilled into their head or take away their summer. I think even one of the best learning methods is playtime if you sit back and watch your kids play for a few minutes I?m sure you can come up with all kinds of opportunities. Another good tool is sand and water tables this is excellent project to have outside and it?s really easy to set up your own. Have your area set up and have one section with play sand in it and the other section with water you can add beach toys like buckets, shovels and you can also use empty clean milk jugs just about anything.