by Lindsay Weiss posted in Life

SUMMER" HOMEWORK"
You betcha. There are two sides to the summer homework issue -- the "give-the-kids-a-break" camp vs. the "kids-gotta-keep-up-their-skills-or-the-brain-drains" camp. I am firmly in the latter, and make no apologies for it.
I'm a big believer in giving the kids a break, but also believe that 15-30 minutes of "work" per day will not compromise the play and unstructured time that is supposed to be summer. I have three educators in my family (mom, dad, sister) and have heard firsthand what happens when kids do absolutely nothing in the summer: they forget A LOT. And the first month of school becomes a big challenge to catch them back up.
So here's what my elementary-aged kids do for 15-30 minutes each day. It's usually a combination of two of these, on a rotating schedule. They can choose when they do it, but it has to be complete by 9 p.m. or they lose privileges for the next day. 1. Xtramath - This is a website and/or app that all my kids' teachers use to drill math facts during the year. They start in first grade with addition and slowly add subtraction, multiplication, and division. You cannot move on until you've mastered one (and "mastery" is tough -- you have to be able to solve the problems within 5 seconds, so it really drills fact fluency). Simple flash cards will do the same thing, but my kids respond to the "Race the Teacher" concept much better and I think ...