School Ready

Even canada goose clearance sale though rapid fire uk canada goose outlet questions from my 9 year old son can drive me car crazy, I love it when the iPad’s off and his own gears start turning. So as our family uk canada goose prepares to embark on a loop of the Olympic Peninsula, I’ve been thinking not so much about steel lattice or insect anatomy, but about summer brain drain. Is it possible to enjoy a summer road canada goose trip and still get the kids back to school ready?

“Kids lose a lot over summer,” says Harris Cooper, a Duke buy canada goose jacket cheap University professor of psychology and neuroscience. The good news is, studies show that kids canada goose factory sale who travel regardless of where they go perform better in reading, math, and general knowledge skills. Canada Goose Online Plus, there’s that buy canada goose jacket thing canada goose coats on sale called family bonding. Turns out it’s totally possible for kids to keep up their school skills and have fun. Here’s how.

The connection between travel Canada Goose Coats On Sale and confident, curious kids is well documented. To keep brains school ready, Cooper recommends reading up on local histories or finding subject matter your kids will be learning in school. Since my kids will be studying Native American cultures in the fall, guess who’ll be visiting coastal Indian reservations on our road trip? And related website to avoid eye rolls caused by “this is actually educational” backlash, I’ll also encourage their creativity and open mindedness by letting them choose destinations of their own.

Have fun with geography and math (really!) through mapping activities.

“If our car is going 35 miles an expeditionparkaoutlets hour and somebody cuts us off in traffic, how long does canada goose coats it take for Dad to get really mad?” Seriously, all kinds of fun math and mapping games canada goose clearance can be done on the road. Let your kids help navigate by using a map scale canadian goose jacket to measure distances or looking up fun state and country facts with this interactive map for kids. Monika March of Blaine, Washington, a mom of two tweens who Canada Goose online “road schools” most of the year, even lets her kids try to figure out public transit canada goose store systems. “Sometimes cheap canada goose uk you end up going the wrong direction,” she says. “But that’s how kids learn.”

Yep science experiments can be done in the car!

Let’s assume that at some point in your journey, plenty Canada Goose sale of half empty water bottles are rolling around in the backseat. Here’s your opportunity to teach the kids canada goose uk outlet about sound, vibrations, and pitch by forming a bottle band. Or if you don’t mind a little stickiness (can you even avoid it?), check out this candy Canada Goose Outlet experiment that’s all about solutions cheap Canada Goose and colors. Whatever you do, science teachers agree that any activity that (safely) canada goose uk black friday sparks imagination scores school readiness points.

Practice observation skills through photography.

It’s a rare road trip when I don’t find dozens of images on my phone of speeding cars, cloud formations, or even close ups of my 9 year old’s teeth. Hey, like we said, observation skills. Build on those skills with these photo tips for kids or suggestions from professional photographers. Organizing and editing those photos in a moderated photography community for kids like My Shot also helps develop important detail oriented skills, useful in everything from creative writing to science to art.

Sharpen those logic skills with some friendly canada goose black friday sale debates or, well, you know, just talking.

Logic skills are crucial for kids to make sense of what they’re learning in school or at least to come up with a better response than “Be quiet!” to an annoying sibling in the car. Practice some meaningful back and forth exchanges by discussing audio books from the road. The March family discussed Canada Goose Jackets The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn while driving up the Mississippi River. (Do the same thing with movies or videos.) You can even check out some weird and wild canada goose uk shop stories (with parental guidance) and debate which is the weirdest, which is the wildest, and why. Looking out the window works too. During a road trip in Europe a few years ago, our family got into a lengthy conversation about car design and automotive engineering. The result was a school presentation from our then 11 year Canada Goose Parka old daughter entitled “Strange Cars I Saw in Switzerland and Germany.”.