Prevent the Summer Slide For Teens

ByShelley Brewer Posted: Updated:

Summer is coming and it’s time to get your teen excited to learn in a way they never get to experience in school. Now is the time to foster those passions and excitement over their own growth of new skills. This also helps teens stay engaged and prevent the dreaded “summer slide” where skills diminish over the holidays.

FOSTERING A PASSION FOR LEARNING IN TEENS

A group of 5 teens are outside on a summer day smiling and giving a thumbs up. Overlay text says Fostering Passions in teens to Prevent the Summer Slide

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Summer is the perfect time to foster those passion pursuits in your teens and get them excited about learning and their future careers. Does your teen have an interest in something new and different? Something they don’t teach in the classroom? Why not make this summer their chance to explore those interests and see where it might take them?

Are you wondering how? Here are some tips to get you started.

Summer Teens Goal Journal

First, make sure you grab our Summer Teens Goal Journal. It is free for our mailing list subscribers and will help your teen set goals and come up with ideas for the summer. Having them get excited about their summer projects and goals is the first step to success. Plus learning how to use a journal and planner is a great life skill, and helps them develop important organizational skills.

UNLOCK THE JOURNAL PRINTABLE HERE

Create A Summer Bucket List

Encourage your teens to create a bucket list of projects they want to do this summer. Include new skills they would like to learn or new things they want to try. The Journal I have available above has a section just for this! Now is a great time to try all those ideas that they never have time for during the school year.

Tinker Kits – Learn a New Skill, Tackle A New Project

Once your teens have created a bucket list of new skills and projects they want to do, put together the tools and supplies they need to make it happen. Building a Tinker Kit to help them explore there new interests will help them on their path of discovery and learning.

Maybe they are aspiring blacksmiths or metalsmiths and want to try metal stamping.

Or perhaps they want to learn how to make soaps and bath bombs.

Maybe they are an aspiring writer or artist.

Or maybe they want to try making clay sculptures, or making candy, or home DIY projects.

Investing in some supplies, tools and books could help launch a whole new passion and career. In fact, many of these could become side hustles for teens to do while they finish their schooling.

Science Lab Time with MEL Science

We are huge fans of MEL Science! Their labs are fantastic and open up the chance for kids to have fun learning science, in particular chemistry, in ways that would be so hard to do on your own. The quality of these boxes is second to none and your kids will have a blast doing all the really cool science experiments. Did I mention the VR feature? Yeah, this is one program your teens (and tweens), will LOVE!

MEL Science Educational VR Lessons

Learn Coding and Circuits with Creation Crate

It’s no secret we are big fans of Creation Crate. Their hands on learning boxes are always a fantastic project for teens. Right now we are building a Boom Box and next we are going to tackle building an Optical Theremin and a wearable Heart Rate Monitor. Their projects are always such a great challenge for teens and they include tons of amazing, practical skills that could help your teen find their new career path.

Outschool

We discovered Outschool a number of years ago and have really enjoyed it. It is kind of like Teachers Paying Teachers but it is teachers offering courses for kids in a dizzying array of topics. My teen learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons and has joined a number of weekly games. We have also done some fascinating courses exploring passion interests. At one point my son really wanted to learn all the Greek and Latin roots of English words. Guess what, there is a fantastic instructor teaching exactly that! And that instructor also teaches a Doctor Who course on writing that we just had to take. No matter what subject matter your child is interested in, there is probably a course for them on Outschool.

Ideas for Tweens

I have focused on projects for teens but what about your younger kids that also want to chase their passions this summer? You can easily adapt some of our recommendations for your younger ones. But here are a few special ideas just for your younger kids.

Tappity

Got a kid that loves learning about science in a multi-sensory way? You MUST check out Tappity. My 10 year old is obsessed with it, and they keep building and growing the program which keeps my kid coming back and learning all summer long. Plus each week they have a “game show” edition that my son loves doing. Best of all it can be done offline while you are traveling. Plus Tappity now offers live classes as part of their Tappity Science Academy.

This summer encourage your kids to set goals and explore new paths. The skills they develop this summer could be their career of the future. By fostering these passions we are helping teens build life long skills, a drive to learn, and abilities that will build confidence.

A male and female teen are using computers and he is wearing a headset as they smile and work on a project together. Overlay text says Fostering Passions in Teens to Prevent the Summer Slide

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Shelley is the owner and creator of STEAM Powered Family, which she started in 2015 as a way to share her passion for how brains work, plus education and learning. She has a BSc Psychology Specialization, with post grad research and studies in memory, cognition, learning and childhood mental health. She is passionate about exploring educational approaches that promote positive children's mental health practices, and inclusive practices that encourage a love of learning in all students. Most of all she loves research and figuring out how things work, and sharing that knowledge with others. Shelley also loves reading, writing, hiking and traveling with her family.