Summer Binders

A few months ago I decided to make some binders for the kiddos to work on this summer.  My goal was to help them retain what they have learned the past school year.  Well, that little project turned a bit bigger than I had planned (like "staying-up-until-1:00-in-the-morning-because-I-want-to-make-these-worth-it" type of bigger).  However, as a former teacher I know how important this stuff is so I took it pretty seriously. 

Since I'm the kind of girl that likes to beg, borrow, and steal ideas when I see them I felt it only was right to share my own findings with all of you!  Here is how this little project came together:

The outside of the binders are identical.  I like things cute so I used plain binders and inserted polka dot scrapbook paper, along with paper with their names written in stickers to tell them apart.

When they first open their binders there is a Bible verse.  This is an important verse to us and one that I always want my children to have hidden in their little hearts so I thought it was fitting to put it front and center where they would look at it every day.

You will also notice on the right side there are numbered tabs.  Those tabs correlate to the number of weeks we have in the summer.  Simply put, one tab per week (they are not allowed to work ahead).  At the beginning of each tab is a checklist of what they are expected to do that week.  I'll start with Eva's since hers is a little more intense since she is older (Eva will be starting 3rd grade in the fall).

Eva will be reading the book Skinnybones by Barbara Parks this summer.  I have broken the book down into 3 chapters a week.  She will be reading aloud to me (so I can monitor her reading and just so I can snuggle her....hahaha...gotta love a mama with ulterior motives), as well as reading on her own.   I have also created comprehension questions for her to answer each week.  If you are uncomfortable doing that study guides can be purchased for many books that have different levels of questions in them.  On top of that Eva will be reading books online and answering questions regarding them.  This online reading was set up by her teacher and the ebooks are right at her level which is super nice! 

I was struggling with what to do in reading after we finished the book Skinnybones.  I decided to have Eva do some non-fiction reading and research.  Eva looooooves watching TV episodes on storm chasers.  I decided to roll with that passion of hers!  I found some children's books on-line (I love Amazon for childrens books because you can actually look at them before you buy them)!  She'll be reading these books, doing a little research on-line, and then writing about her findings.

Eva also has math each week.  Some weeks she will be working on simple addition and subtraction.  Other weeks she'll be doing geometry and fractions.  Yet other weeks she will be working with money and story problems.  I tried it keep it varied, but also put special emphasis on the areas she needs extra work on.  Some of the math sheets I got out of 2nd and 3rd grade workbooks that you can buy at Target or any other store like that.  Others I printed off of the computer for free.   Eva will also be practicing her math on the computer using various interactive websites.  If you need website help on anything just email me and I can help you out.  I have a few math games we will also be playing.

Last, but not least, every OTHER week Eva will be given a writing prompt.  She needs to use the pre-writing sheet that I created for her and then write a paragraph or two about the prompt.  I will be "grading" the prompt with the rubric used for writing in her 2nd grade class.  My hope is that Eva will really begin to see where her writing needs to improve and we can work together to make those improvements.

There is an incentive program built into each of the kiddos binders (it IS summer after all and I wanted them to have an exciting aspect to these, although I'm not sure I really needed it as they have been DYING to get their binders and tackle some work in them).  I'll explain the incentives at the end.

Jaden's binder format is set up the same way as Eva's (a checklist at the beginning of each week).  For reading Jaden will be working on reading the books in the BOB series.

If you have little ones this age (Jaden is going into Kindergarten) these books are AWESOME!  I'm not sure how we originally heard about them, but we've used them for both Eva and Jaden when they were FIRST learning to put letter sounds together to form words.  The look of accomplishment on their faces when they READ A BOOK is always priceless!!  Jaden will be reading between 1 and 2 books a week 3 times each (the books are super short).  There are 12 books in the first series, so we will make it through the entire series this summer.

On top of that he will be working on letter formation.  Jaden has been writing his name for years....but he would write it in all capital letters.  We are working at writing it with an uppercase letter at the beginning and the rest lowercase.

He will also be practicing a few letters of the alphabet each week.

There are some games that I have worked into various weeks to reinforce these strategies too (Pinterest is GREAT for finding games for this).  

Once he's worked on his name for a few weeks we are going to tackle writing a little more.  He has some prompts like this that he will be expected to fill out (with help) and then draw a picture at the top.

Jaden has various math pages to work on that I got out of a Pre-K/Kindergarten workbook from Target.  I simply ripped out the pages I felt were important, punched holes in them, and added them to the binder.  Can't get more easy than that!

 At the end of Jaden's binder is the book "The Night Before Kindergarten".  Yep, as you can guess this will be read to him when his binder is finished and it is the night before his BIG DAY - the night before KINDERGARTEN!

 Ok...now for the fun part....REWARDS!!!  Each week Eva and Jaden have 3 small prizes to pick from.  These "treats" cost no more than $2 each.   These are an example of Jaden's rewards he can chose from (he can choose ONE each week):

Just to clarify, my little guy LOVES Skylanders Giants and would play it all day if I let him. To his regret, I don't.  AT ALL.  An hour of screen time is a BIG treat (and I'm guessing it's the prize he'll chose most often).  At the end of 5 weeks (so twice during the summer) they can earn a BIG PRIZE.  These prizes can only be obtained if they have completed all work:

The prizes change a bit from week to week (for example, after baseball season is over I changed "treat at baseball game " to "treat from the grocery store").  I also made the prizes different for each child.  For example, one of Eva's "BIG PRIZE" choices for week 10 is a manicure and pedicure for the first day of school.

In all I am excited - super excited - to start this program!  Matt and I both believe it is soooo important for children to retain what they've learned the past year so they don't have to play catch-up when the school year starts.  Some of you may think the amount of work looks like a lot, but I figure their weekly work will take them between 1 and 2 hours every week.  When you take into account they are home all day that really isn't too bad.  I'm trying to also use this as a lesson in time management....when you plan accordingly (and do a little work each day) you don't have to sit down for 2 hours at the end of the week!!!  If they use their time wisely they will be working on their binders 20-30 minutes a day.

I handed out the binders tonight to two children that we OVER-THE-TOP excited.  They loved seeing what the cover looked like.  They loved the new special pencils I tucked into each binder, and they loved that they each had something special to do each week....and something special to earn as a result of it.  They both couldn't wait to get started....

I hope this helps anyone else out there that is looking to do something like this!  It did take quite some time to put together, but I had no model to follow....feel free to use the format I did and it should take you a lot less time!  Good Luck and email me if you have any questions!!!

"A child educated only as school is an uneducated child"

--George Santayana