Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Fun "Academic" Summer Activities for 8 y.o.

While I have a few ideas about fun "academic" summer activities for my 8 year old (current 3rd grader, turns 9 this summer), I know that the folks on this forum will have some great ideas that never crossed my mind.

Info on the kid...
Bright kid, clearly above average, but not HG/PG type of kid. She is currently at a language immersion school and has not had IQ testing. She is my neglected child since we spend a lot more time with our 9th grader and 12th grader - HS and travel sports, college apps, etc. She will attend the local public school in the fall, 4th grade.

The only test scores I can offer are Terra Nova and EXPLORE. She didn't qualify to take EXPLORE through C-MITES because she only scored 92nd percentile on the Terra Nova composite. She wanted to take the EXPLORE since DD17 did that in 3rd grade. I found NUMATS would take a 92nd percentile kid, so I signed her up. She prepped by doing the sample questions. She is not accelerated or afterschooled (beyond me, DD17 & DD15 trying to answer various random questions she asks).

EXPLORE scores: 14C (14E/14M/12R/15S)

I don't think she will respond well to a formal academic program. I was thinking maybe Life of Fred - she did the first two books a while ago, but maybe she is past the elementary ones now? They are doing multiple digit multiplication and very simple division at school right now. If she has the interest, is CodeAcademy too tough for a kid this age? She seems to like math and history.

I hope to have some time to spend with her this summer, though she will be in day camp for about 6 hours a day.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

How about thematic craft projects? Build and decorate a pyramid along with reading about Egypt, food science experiments (molecular gastronomy), etc.

Basically fun home variations of school projects that she selects herself.

If you want a programming tract, I'd start with Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/ . CodeAcademy gets into language specifics, but Scratch is more "thinking about programming" which is what really matters.

Try Math for gifted kids. It's available in Barnes and Nobles. Try 3rd graders 1st. The format is random but challenging and fun for Mathy kids.

14 Composite for 3rd grader is a pretty good score. She could improve reading by unlimited visits to the public library :-). The kids improve the comprehension if you ask them to write a brief summary after every few chapters. I wish they make STAR AR(reading test) available commercially to parents instead of just the schools.

One of the things my youngest and I enjoyed (found it purely by accident) was metal detecting. We'd look for possible interesting sites together, always fun seeing what you can dig up of course....but it's what we dug up that was the academic part. Figuring out what it was a part of or the history behind what we dug up, looking up the value of coins, etc. This might be a good activity for that "neglected" child (our second one was in some respects the same) and the together time is of course highly valued as well.

I've also read about some 1-2 week programs of archaeology for kids programs that either just the child or the whole family can be involved in. There are a lot of local geology clubs as well.

If you're looking for home challenge math or simply to explore math in greater depth my recommendation for elementary age are books by Edward Zaccaro. He presents math in a fun way with good practical application as well.

I'm turning my kid loose on diy.org for the summer. He's already come up with at least 50 projects he plans on tackling! They're not "academic" as in workbooks, but they all require project planning, creativity, shopping and learning to be a Maker!

Thanks for posting the diy.org. Its a great site.

Thanks for the suggestions - all of them look interesting. We may try out some of them over spring break.