2010-2011 Homeschool Juniors Bowling League

Your kids ages 16 and under can bowl free (not including shoe rental) all summer at participating AMF Bowling Centers during their Summer Unplugged promotion. We have used the free summer bowling for the past few years so the boys could keep their skills up. Unfortunately, Aaron is too old now but Jordan and his friends will be bowling this summer! See if your AMF Bowling Center is participating by clicking here. Then register your kids at the Summer Unplugged site. Each week from Memorial Day to Labor Day they will send you an email with that week’s coupons in it, how easy is that?!?

Bowling is great family fun and good exercise too! Have a ball this summer and throw some strikes!

Don’t forget to follow AMF on Twitter,  Facebook, and YouTube too!

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Summer’s here and you’ve started making your annual checklist: Sunscreen? Check. Sandals? Check. Beach towels?  Got ‘em. But while you’re going over the must-haves for the season, don’t forget the single most important thing your kids will need: something really great to read.

While relaxing on the beach with a good book is one of life’s most delicious pleasures, study after study has shown that reading is one of the most essential things that kids can do when school’s out. A 2002 report from National Summer Learning Association states that children lose approximately two months of learning over the summer, meaning that come September, teachers will spend those first few weeks re-teaching kids what they already learned the year before.

“Motivating children to read throughout the summer is essential to building lifelong readers,” says Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s largest children’s literacy nonprofit. “And reading is the doorway to all other learning.” With that in mind, how do you convince your kids to build reading time into their summer plans? Fortunately, RIF has come up with a number of ideas to help you make this summer a season of reading.

• Combine activities with books. Going to a baseball game? Head to the library and check out a biography about your child’s favorite player. Is summer camp on the agenda? See if the camp has a blog you can follow.
• Lead by example. Show kids that you love to read by picking up the newspaper each morning or sharing about something you’ve read, and they’ll understand that reading is important to everyone.
• Relax the rules. Summer is a time when children can read what, when, and how they please. Don’t set any requirements, and don’t force kids to read something they’re not interested in.
• Visit the library. It’s got thousands of books and audiobooks to borrow, computers to use, and magazines to leaf through. Make the library your “go-to” destination for the summer.
• Think outside the book. Recognize that reading can happen in many formats, from eBooks to magazines to online read-along stories. Check out www.rif.org/kids for great read-alongs and other fun games and activities designed to keep kids reading.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to this: read. Read together, read separately, read anywhere, read everywhere. It’s the surest way to make certain that your kids will start the school year off right.

Rebecca Burton is a writer/editor at Reading Is Fundamental and has been working in the children’s literacy field for the past twelve years. She loves to read, travel, and hang out on the back porch with her husband and their two-year-old daughter.

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For many students, three months of summer vacation often results in a back slide in their educational progress. However, the interactive tutoring site Virtual Nerd provides a new alternative for students to avoid summer break brain drain.

Virtual Nerd is offering a summer special: a three month subscription for the price of just one month – $49. Students get unlimited access to interactive math tutorials through a very personalized and highly interactive Web-based experience that is available whenever and wherever students want. For details on the “Three for One” promotion, go to www.virtualnerd.com/braindrain.

“Teachers often tell us that they may spend as much as one month at the beginning of each school year reviewing and re-teaching topics,” says Co-Founder and President, Josh Salcman. “So if students spend just a little time each week using Virtual Nerd, it can help them with retaining concepts so they are well prepared for returning to school in the fall.”

Virtual Nerd offers students in grades 7-12 access to hundreds of Algebra I step-by-step video tutorials. The site combines engaging, high-definition video with a patent-pending e-Learning platform that anticipates students’ questions and guides students step by step through any problem. The platform also lets students break down any problem to its most basic roots using supporting tutorials. Because the site is interactive, students can control the pace and amount of detail in each lesson to effectively learn concepts—not just find answers.

“Whether it’s from their lake house or their living room, our site lets students come and go as they please, whenever it fits into their busy schedule.” says Leo Shmuylovich, Co-Founder and Head of Educational Content for Virtual Nerd. “Summer is a busy time for families but it doesn’t have to mean a back slide in students’ progress.”

Added Salcman, “In the fall, when kids go back to school, they’ll be ready to hit the ground running, rather than spending weeks reviewing what they already learned.”

Virtual Nerd offers interactive math and science tutorials for students in grades 7-12. Virtual Nerd uses a patent pending e-learning platform to provide students with a highly interactive and personalized learning experience. Students learn at their own pace and achieve fundamental understanding of math and science. Click here to view the introductory video, and follow Virtual Nerd on Facebook and Twitter.

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The part that I like about this program, besides the freebie, is that the activities also help your child become familiar with books, authors, and even the library itself. If your child likes adventures, this is a great way to go on a “clue hunt” within the library.

To get started, just sign up and download your passport.

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There are plenty of things you can do to keep young brains active over the summer and this week I’ll be sharing some posts to give you ideas and resources to keep the learning going in your home this summer.

The post School’s Out For Summer appeared first on The Mom Maven.