Children in our summer program beat the summer slide with science, reading, and fun field trips!

The program for children in K-3rd grades, wrapped up in early August.  Over the course of the program, activities helps prevent learning loss or the “summer slide”– a loss in several months of academic gains that can happen over the summer school holiday.

The best way to prevent the summer slide is by reading, and kids in our program did a lot of that!  The overall theme for the summer curriculum was water, and the children read and wrote about a number of topics related to the environment.  Trips and activities helped to reinforce what they learned in the classroom.  For example,  on a trip to Randall’s Island, children explored a salt water marsh and learned about wetland conservation.  They used binoculars, magnifying glasses, fish nets, and traps to find animals in the wetlands, and they did writing and drawing activities to describe what they learned.

On another trip to the Harlem Meer, the children measured water quality and learned about native plants.  They also learned all about giant pandas, with help from guest volunteers from JP Morgan.

Parent engagement was an important part of the program.  Once a week, parents accompanied children for workshops and activities to help them support the academic development of their children at home.  One activity included a trip to the neighborhood library.

The summer program was run by a combination of trained educators and volunteers.  We extend our thanks to the teachers, volunteers and interns from Make the Road and Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) who help make this program so successful for the kids and their families!