My college offered Backpacking as a legitimate way to fulfill a Phys. Ed. requirement.  One of the most useful things the instructor taught the class was the value of the standing rest.  When the going gets tough on a big hill the last thing a hiker wants to do is to lose too much momentum.

For many homeschoolers and afterschoolers, this is the time of year when kids (and parents) start to feel somewhat burned out by the school year.  For public school kids, state tests may be finished and it can be difficult to keep plugging away after weeks of build-up.  Test day itself can feel like something of a denouement. 

As a sympathetic parent, I’m not immune to the lure that the nostalgia of a carefree summer poses.  Then again, when teachers and policy makers point out how much skills can atrophy over the summer, I think it’s important to keep the kids in some kind of brainwork routine.
Some math practice is definitely in order.  Many homeschoolers and top public schools such as the one in Scarsdale, NY are using Primary Mathematics textbook by Singapore Math which values time spent explaining mathematical concepts over letting children “discover” solutions to “real-world” problems.  I find the textbook / workbook quite logical, and illustrations are relevant and not too numerous.  For the younger grades, some problems have cartoon kids with thought balloons showing the thinking process for getting started.  The workbook provides a lot of practice problems for building fluency.

Four short math sessions  for each of the 7-8 of the weeks of summer will be our goal.  About twice a week, ten minutes will be spent talking over a section of the textbook and another 10-15 minutes doing a page or two of workbook problems.  Alternate days will be spent completing the corresponding workbook pages.  As with music practice, it’s important not to skip more than one day between sessions, even if this means starting with sessions under 30 minutes.

I’ve found that using copywork can really help kids to become fluent with math facts and computation as well.  So many schools rely on workbooks, worksheets, and flashcards that kids miss out on the value of copywork for memory.  So I sometimes have my kids copy the textbook problems instead of solving them in the book.   Kids who aren’t naturally neat can use graph paper to get used to lining up multi digit numbers to preserve place value.