Worried your child will forget last year’s lessons during the months of fun in the sun? Relax! These outdoor activities will help stop the “summer slide” without ruining summer vacation.

Summer break may be only about 10 weeks long, but during that time kids can forget a lot of what they spent the previous nine months working hard to learn. Recent studies have shown that kids can lose up to two months’ worth of reading and math skills over summer vacation and that means teachers have to spend precious classroom time each fall bringing them up to speed. Keeping children’s brains challenged throughout the summer is crucial.

That makes sense, of course, but what parent wants spend time drilling her kids on math facts when there’s outdoor fun to be had? Well, good news, summer vacation and learning aren’t mutually exclusive. Summer is a great time to awaken kids to the love of learning and help them discover that learning can be joyful, even if they think that school itself is not.

The following activities are all ways to stop the summer slide while having fun outdoors. Each one supports continued learning by creating opportunities for children to be creative, think critically to solve problems, count, read or categorize or group things and ideas. Try one (or more!) today.

• Take a day trip with other families. Experiencing new things with a group can provide a wide range of opportunities for you to help you children learn how to communicate, interact with others and learn important life skills. Be ready to coach, model and discuss these experiences with your children.
• Choose a weekly theme to explore together. Adults can model a love of learning by living summer with enthusiasm. Ideas for a list of themes for this summer could include horses, water, rare coins or eggs.
• Try something new. Talk to your children about a new experience they would like to try, such as sleeping outside in a tent or fort you make together, trying a new slide at the park or learning how to do a somersault or cartwheel. Summer is a wonderful opportunity for children to gain confidence and grow as individuals by trying new things outside of their comfort zones.
• Plan or join a community event planting trees, bushes, flowers or a garden. Use this opportunity to study and discuss all the benefits that plants provide for us. Plan walks around areas in your town to identify the areas that are most in need of these benefits.
• Enrich outdoor adventures with a driving question. A driving question is a primary question that will initiate and focus discovery and learning. Examples of good driving questions include “How can we use a camera to persuade citizens to protect the wildlife around our city?” or “What is best route for a walking tour of our town?” Take the learning a step further by encouraging your kids to participate in developing the question. Or ask kids to imagine they’re in charge of creating a campaign to get kids off devices and into the sunshine. Ask, “What parks and local outdoor attractions should we feature in the brochure?”
• Go on nature walks, hikes and bike rides. Pack a magnifying glass, collect rocks to paint, look through binoculars, even two toilet paper tubes offer a new view of the world.
• Plant a backyard vegetable garden. Vegetable gardens are always an awesome experience for children. Whether you work with your children to prepare the ground, pick out seeds or plants at a local nursery, start the garden or tend to it as it grows, there are wonderful opportunities to teach children about the natural environment around them and their role maintaining it. The results also taste great!