Summer schooling at Home

Alex's forth grade year was less than ideal. His grades were good, but what he actually learned sucked! The more years we have in public school the more I realize that these students are only being taught to the test, not to knowledge. One thing that became shockingly apparent right after school let out, is that Alex had no idea what was a state or what was a country. He mentioned one day that the country of Arizona must be really mad about all the illegal aliens in their country to make laws about it. Now I am all for discussing current events with our kid (which we do all most everyday since we are a news junkie household), but I was floored that he thought Arizona was a separate country. After a quick verbal quiz we discovered that he was completely confused on the topic. 

Enter a mom made Summer School packet.

Nearly every day Alex does some sort of school work. We are using Handwriting Without Tears to improve his printing and cursive, and have all ready seen an improvement. We do Math drills every day both 4 digit addition, multiplication and division. We are reviewing Money skills, especially since he now earns an allowance. Reading comprehension, grammar, and writing skills are reviewed in a rotating basis throughout the week. States and their capitals are done every day with a new state each day. I found some awesome coloring and flashcard sheets for each state online and we slowly build up our flashcard deck each day.

Admittedly Alex isn't too happy about this impromptu summer home school, but I will be damned if my kid won't know the difference between Delaware and Bolivia.