Summer Homework: How to Keep Kids On Target For School

While your children are on break from school, providing them with summer homework can help maintain their academic progress and prevent them from regressing.

No, children do not require excessive summer assignments during the summer months. But they should have a small amount of summer work, focused on review not on new material. A few tasks each morning are beneficial for your children.

I started this when my children were little about preschool age.

It’s good to start working on simple things with your little ones and having them do “homework”. Homework isn’t a bad thing if it isn’t too much work and not hard. Kids learn a lot throughout the year, and they need to keep up, so they don’t forget anything that they just learned that past year.

What is summer homework?

Summer homework is work done during the summer or summer break from school. It can be reading, doing worksheets, solving math problems, or many other ways of studying or reviewing. It is usually some type of review work to keep up with what your kids have learned throughout the last school year.

Why should your kids do summer homework? And why do teachers give homework over the summer?

Summer homework is very important for your kids to keep and retain the academic skills they just learned that school year.

If your summer break is lengthy, children may quickly forget what they’ve learned. Regular review helps retain information better for the greatest possible success for the child.

That is why a lot of elementary school teachers send home a summer packet. Usually, it’s not for a grade but maybe for extra credit for the completion of the exercises.

Teachers care about the well-being of their students and understand that many students can forget a lot of the information they learned after a long break. To support students, they may recommend summer homework assignments.

Reading is also very important for kids to continually do throughout the summer. Look into your school district and see if they have a summer reading program.

Even before your kids can read it is important for you to read to them a lot. As they are learning to read, they need to read often to continually increase their reading knowledge.

Summer homework ideas

Summer homework kit– Some kids may come home from school with a packet full of papers and suggestions for what to do over the summer. Or they may come home with a reading assignment, or math packets, while others have none.
- I highly recommend that you ask your child’s teacher for a homework pack as some will be happy to do so.
Print off worksheets online – If your child doesn’t come home with a homework pack and the teacher isn’t willing to do that then you can easily print off worksheets online. And then create your own summer packet for your child. Be sure to print off the answer key so that you can help your child with problems they may have gotten wrong.
Use your child’s homework papers as an example –Make up your own problems or exercises for them to do. I’ve been known to type up some homework using the same or similar questions and math problems, so it is just a review.
- You don’t have to start working on math problems or things that your child hasn’t learned yet, just keep going over items that they have learned that grade level.
Make Index cards/flash cards to study – This would be great for children learning sight words, math skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication, or vocabulary words. It would be fun to do a new vocabulary word a day on an index card to increase your child’s vocabulary.
Local Library – Look into the library in your city/community, they usually have summer reading programs that are great for your kids. Children read a certain number of books and then can be rewarded with prizes. That is a great incentive for your kids to read or learn to read during the summer.
- Your local library may also have reading times and other activities offered during the summer that your child may enjoy.
Make summer homework fun. Go outside and work on the sidewalk with chalk. Do homework sitting on the grass or a swing.
Take little field trips– Summer homework doesn’t just have to be solving problems and writing out answers. It can involve little field trips you take with your child. Look at what your child learned that year and expand on it by doing little field trips.
- Go to the zoo and look at animals they may have talked about in school.
- Park or hiking trail – where you can discuss plants or nature.
- A body of water – find tadpoles, fish, oysters, etc. Talk about water and sea life.
- Historical sites or Historical buildings – find places near you and talk about history.
- Library – to look up books to expand their knowledge on what they enjoyed learning about at school.
- A working Animal Farm – It would be great for kids to see where eggs come from or how to take care of animals by feeding them, brushing horses, etc…
- Museums – Art, Science, etc… Interactive ones would be extra fun.
Do science experiments with your kids and talk about what worked or failed. How items reacted to other items.
Plan a trip to drive to historical sites and talk about those.
If going on vacation, have your kids help with planning it out. Let them look for places to visit while there. When on family vacations see those sites and talk about them.
Maybe summer homework is volunteering time in the community. Talking about people and the government, etc.
Give your kids incentives to do summer homework. Maybe each week go to the pool or somewhere fun if they are doing their work.
Math Practice – Make math homework fun. Count items as your child is building with blocks or playing with toys. Use games to practice counting money like playing Monopoly or Life. Make up fun games where your child buys items from the store. Set up a table with toys and items and put price tags on them and let them pretend shop with real or fake money.
Coincide a book they are reading with a fun treat, outing, or fun activity.
- Have a family theater night of acting out parts in the book that they are reading.
- Even watching a movie that is based on the book they are reading is fun.
- Or if your kids are reading a book that may pertain to a food item, you can bake or cook that item together. For example: Green eggs and ham. Cookies, Give a mouse a cookie. Pinkalicious, make pink desserts.
Read a good book as a family. Have a certain time each day that you all sit together and read. That can be on a cozy couch, on a blanket in the grass, in a make shift tent in the house or outside.
Video games – I do think if your child really enjoys video games you can use some that are educational to help your kids with review throughout the summer.
Video tutorial – If your child had a hard time understanding a certain concept in math, social studies, or another subject you can probably find a good video online for them to watch and learn.

When should you have your child do their summer homework? What time of day?

Summer Homework should begin about a week or two after the end of the school year. Let your child just chill and relax for a bit then start it up.

If it is a field trip somewhere that will be determined by your schedule and the best time to go, there.
I suggest that your kids must first complete their paper homework and or reading before they can go out and play, go on a play date, or do any activity.
If it’s not functional for your kids to complete homework in the morning try to have a set time frame during the day that your child can do their work each day. That way your child expects it and it’s not a surprise. It will be a routine they are used to. Feel free to check out my bedtime, morning and after school routines for some great tips.

My children even had to do a little bit of homework when we were on summer vacation, though it was only some reading or a few problems to solve. They never protested because they knew they could finish quickly and have the rest of the day to play.

My daughter is the oldest so when we began this with her about preschool age our son wanted to join in. With him being so little it was just having an adult read to him, coloring a page in a color book, or working on colors or counting. Nevertheless, he enjoyed it and it started him in the routine.

If you start helping your kids with homework and studying time when they are young, you can establish a routine or habit for them. As they grow older, they will be accustomed to prioritizing homework before engaging in play and other activities.

I’d stop summer homework about a week before the beginning of the next school year. This will give your children a little break and get prepared for the new school year.

If by chance your child is taking summer school you may not need to do much at home since they will already be reviewing and learning there.

Should kids have homework or not?

My answer is yes. During the school year and during the summer. But with two stipulations.

Only if that homework is reviewing material learned in class, a short reading assignment, or studying for a test. I don’t believe in kids trying to teach themselves new information especially at home for homework. The teacher should be doing that at school. And children to high school kids should never have to rely on YouTube videos to learn how to do something. It should be taught well enough in class by their teacher.
My other stipulation is that kids shouldn’t have much to do at home. Very little. And limited throughout the week. Kids shouldn’t have homework every single night in each subject. And it should be completed in a short amount of time. Children should never have to spend several hours a night working on homework. That to me is unacceptable.

I believe that, depending on their age, students should not spend more than 10-30 minutes on homework per night. For high school students, the time spent on homework and studying should not exceed one hour per night. However, I strongly feel that even with study time included, students should not be spending more than two hours on homework each night.

Kids need their downtime and to be able to relax and do something they like each day.

When kids are too bogged down with work, they don’t have time to enjoy simple things in life and let out their stress. So, there is a limit on how much time they should be spending on homework each night.

The Benefits of Summer Homework

I think it’s good to have just a little homework/summer exercises when they are little so that kids can start learning how to study. But make it fun and create fun ways of learning. Homework isn’t negative. So, hopefully, you as a parent and your child’s teachers won’t make it that way.

Having some homework when they are young can help teach them discipline. It can also help them establish a routine at home, whether in the mornings or evenings. For instance, they could have breakfast, do their homework, then have time to play or have a snack, do homework, and then playtime or follow whatever routine works for your family.

By studying at home, children can start to figure out the best and most effective way for them to study.

Check out my blog on study tips so you know what I’m referring to. Learning how to study and the most effective way for them will help them throughout their school years.

As I have said, yes, a little homework is good for kids but only a little bit of review material.

Feel free to share your comments and opinions but please understand I am not in support of lots of homework each night. And not homework that wasn’t properly taught in school. The material should just be reviewed so the child is practicing it.

Have a great summer! Don’t forget to help your kids keep the knowledge they learned. So, they will have a great start to the new school year and a great time in school.

Help make your children’s first day of school fun! So many children don’t want to see summer go away or they are just reluctant to start a new school year so make sure that you help excite them. I always baked a cake the first day of school and the kids really enjoyed that and looked forward to it.