EDUCATION MATTERS—SANFORD SCHOOL'S PRIVATE SCHOOL BLOG

This has been an unusual summer, but while COVID-19 may have caused you to cancel your plans, but there are still many ways you can make the most of your stay-at-home summer. It's understandable to dwell on and feel disappointed about missed opportunities, but if you have the bandwidth anddesire, you may find great joy in using thissummer as the time to do the things you are usually too busy to do. Rather than dwelling on thistime as the summer of missed opportunities, you can turn it into the summer of exploration by diving into the following areas:

Educators have been aware of summer slide or a regression in academic progress over the summer months since a comprehensive study was published almost twenty-five years ago (Charlton, K, Cooper, H, Greathouse, S, Lindsay, J, Nye, B, 1996). Especially during a period of uncertainty when many families may be spending more time at home, Sanford School teachers are here to share ideas that will encourage continued academic growth and stability throughout the summer months. Setting up a consistent schedule in the summer filled with educational activities will help continue your child's learning throughout elementary school.

Once summer rolls along, it is often hard to resist the temptation to retire completely from the academic pursuits that had kept one so active during the school year. As tempting as this may be, what students often forget is how easy it is to incorporate these lessons into their summer schedules in a way that suits their interests. Here are just a few tips on how to keep the learning going so as to expand your interests and ease the transition into a new school year.

The summer slide is the learning loss that some students have at the beginning of the school year after the summer break. Studies have shown that there is a loss of about one to three months of knowledge from the end of the school year to the start. To avoid the summer slide, students need to be actively involved in educational opportunities so they can return to school ready to learn.

Impending graduation at any institution fills its students with a variety of emotions: excitement at the idea of carving a new path independent of everything they have ever known, uncertainty about what their future may hold, and often the melancholy sadness that comes with having to leave friends who have become family over the last four years. These are their people. As graduates leave to start the next chapters of their lives, they will remember so much about their friends–their contagious laughter, their lengthy list of inside jokes, their support during times of impossible difficulty, and their shared experience of growing up at a school they’ll remember forever.

Going to middle school is a big change, and even though your child may be excited, there’s also probably some anxiety about moving up to the next level. This Scholastic article notes that some of the common fears that kids have about starting middle school. Parents can support their children by taking kids’ concerns seriously and, as much as possible, being proactive before the school year begins so that the transition is a smooth one. Read the following five tips that you can use to help prepare you and your child to make the move to middle school.

We just celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day on April 22nd. Let’s continue to protect the environment every day to help the world to be a happier, healthier place to live. Check out the list below for ideas on how you can keep looking out for the Earth all year long.

Distance learning is well underway in many schools across the country. Shifting to working at home takes time and patience for the whole family. Here are eight helpful hints to share with your children. We encourage you to download the form available to you at the bottom of this article and hope that some of these suggestions might be useful to you.

Kids–and adults!–often turn to technology for both fun and learning. Whether kids are doing online research for a project, posting comments on social media, texting a friend, or watching a movie, it can sometimes be surprising just how much time they spend using screens. In fact, a report by Common Sense Media states that tweens (children aged 8-12 years old) consume about six hours of media time each day, and for teenagers (children aged 13-18) the daily average jumps up to nearly nine hours.

According to an article from the American Psychological Association (APA), nearly one-third of children have been diagnosed with anxiety and it is the most common mental health disorder in kids. Below are four facts that you should know as you explore the causes and effects of childhood anxiety.