The path to becoming a lifelong learner begins in school, but some students need extra encouragement to get there. Many children hear the final bell on the last day of school and look forward to two months of not learning a thing. Unfortunately, an actual break from learning can cause summer learning loss, better known as the summer slide. If students don’t stay up on their reading, writing and math over the summer, they can fall behind by the time school starts again. Here’s how you can help prevent this for your child. 

Play Board Games Together

Even the simplest of board games can keep your child’s mind working. Nearly all board games incorporate reading and math, while some actively keep players writing and drawing. More than academic skills, board games teach children how to play well with others. Developing social and collaboration skills over the summer will set your child up for success when the next school year comes around. 

Encourage Summer Reading

Depending on your child’s age, you can either take time to read together or encourage solo reading. Find reading challenges you find online, or see if your child wants to compete with their siblings to see who can read the most age-appropriate books. Keep track of your child’s reading progress, as well as which books they’re reading. Sometimes, when left to their own devices, children will choose books below their reading level. Consider allowing your child to choose from a list of challenging, age-appropriate books that will really get them thinking. 

Take Educational Trips

Find a location that’s all about interactive learning, and bring your child there for a day. Take time to learn about animals and plant life at the zoo or aquarium. Learn about art or history together at a local museum. If you’re lucky enough to live within driving distance of a specialized museum like the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, go out and make a day of it. There are plenty of fun places you can take your child where they may not even realize how much they’re learning. 

Keep Doing Math

Of all the subjects students learn in school, math is the one that suffers the most from the summer slide. Children who don’t like math actively avoid doing it over the summer. See if making it a game will give it more appeal. Encourage your child to play free online math games like Prodigy Math Game, a role-playing game that requires math skills to progress, or the simple math games on Cool Math Games. Try making up word math problems to do at the dinner table. You can even gamify multiplication tables by practicing them with a timer. There are plenty of ways to make math fun. Just make sure not to overdo it — your child is on break, after all. 

At our Orlando Catholic school, we hope that all of our students become lifelong learners. Located in the Diocese of Orlando, St. Charles Borromeo is more than just a place to learn; it’s a diverse community. Our staff is committed to proclaiming the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. We believe in teaching the whole child and want students to love learning, helping them grow into well-rounded, contributing members of society. Learn more about us by contacting us here.

Earth Day gives us an opportunity to bring awareness to our Earth’s environmental state and how we can do our part to preserve it. Getting your kids involved in conservation can be challenging, so we’ve come up with three different scavenger hunts that will educate and entertain your kids. 

Sketching Checklist 

Doing a sketching checklist scavenger hunt is an easy way to get your child out in nature. You can do this activity at a local park. First, provide a checklist of things to find and sketch. For example, they can draw what the clouds look like or they can write down the different things they hear. You can instruct them to feel the bark on the trees or to pick flowers. This helps them to use all of their senses, which makes for an engaging sensory experience. Getting out in nature this way will be fun and exciting for your child. For a free printable to complete this activity click here.

Collecting Objects

Finding objects in nature is another scavenger hunt activity that will teach your child about the different systems in nature. Your child will collect items like sticks and leaves. Another activity would be to look for worms under rocks; this will teach your child about how insects make their homes in nature. Looking for small mammal homes, but not disturbing them, will educate your child about how animals in nature make Earth their home, just like your child does in their home. This is an activity that will get your child up and moving and engaged with the environment. For a free printable to use for this activity click here.

Photo Scavenger Hunt

This scavenger hunt is a great way to get outdoors with your kids. Being outdoors will help them learn more about the environment in a hands-on way. To complete this activity, drive out to a place in nature that has different terrain from your normal setting. Create a list of 10-15 items for your child to take photos of, such as flowers, trees, or bodies of water. Give your child a camera phone or a disposable camera to capture the photos. At the end of the scavenger hunt, you can create a scrapbook with your child. This type of scavenger hunt can keep your child entertained while educating them about the Earth! 

Earth Day is a time to bring awareness to preserving and being thankful for our Earth. That’s why our Orlando Catholic school located in the Catholic Diocese of Orlando encourages children to learn about how they can do their part. Our staff is committed to proclaiming the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. We believe in teaching the whole child and want students to love learning, helping them grow into well-rounded, contributing members of society. Learn more about us by contacting us here.

Our next talent show is March 13th, and we highly encourage our students at St. Charles Borromeo, an Orlando Catholic school, to participate! We know your child aces their academics, but we also want to see them shine with their personal talents. Whether it’s singing or dancing, the talent show is the place to let your child be the bright star she is!

Finding a Passion
We believe that academics are not just about science and math. Maybe your child isn’t as adept at algebra, but more so in the arts. She wants to play an instrument or paint pictures. She needs to find a talent she is passionate about and can practice. By showcasing her talents, she will feel acknowledged and appreciated by her peers, her teachers, and even you. 

Boosting Confidence
Taking a break from schoolwork and allowing your child to pursue their talents is important to her development. She needs to believe in herself and build on that confidence as a child. When she grows up, she will smooth out her skills and become a confident adult. Allow her to discover what she’s good at and encourage her to hone in on it! When you support her, you build a bond and create an opportunity for her to value herself.

Reducing Anxiety and Loneliness
When your child discovers herself, recognizes her abilities, and builds on her confidence, she will blossom. By working with her peers on the talent show, she will have the opportunity to socialize and build relationships. This, in turn, will reduce anxieties and a feeling of loneliness. Working in groups is a crucial skill set she will need as an adult in the workplace.

Having Role Models
Your child needs role models she can look up to you. Yes, as her parent, you are the main role model in her life. But when she discovers her talent and wants to improve on it, she needs people she can look up to. If she is a singer, who are the singers she looks up to? If she plays an instrument, who is a musician she hopes to be like one day? By identifying her role models now, she can follow in their footsteps and be on the way to becoming a star herself!

St. Charles Borromeo, an Orlando Catholic school, is more than just a place to learn; it’s a community. Our staff is committed to proclaiming the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. We believe in teaching the whole child and want students to love learning, helping them grow into well-rounded, contributing members of society. Learn more about us by contacting us here.

Every summer, my church’s youth group has a local mission trip. Almost 100 teenagers from ages 12-18 sleep in the youth building from Monday through Friday, going out to volunteer at food banks, sort recycled soaps and discarded hygiene products, and do yard work for the elderly.

And you know what? Spots fill up almost immediately. This year, it took a record-breaking 5 minutes.

The students thrive on community service. They love helping and connecting with people, sometimes seeing the fruits of their labor, and sometimes knowing they will never see them.

There are many long-term benefits of children participating in and learning how to love community service. Take a look at just a few below.

Opportunity for Quality Family Time

Volunteering together creates opportunities to bond as a family. You can sit down together and share your experiences, discuss what you’ve learned, and brainstorm how to implement these lessons into your daily lives.

Future Success

Community service sets children up to become selfless, service-driven adults through learning empathy and the importance of caring for others. They discover passions they may have never known, such as removing plastic from the ocean or bringing clean water to impoverished countries, and they can build on that passion as they grow. Furthermore, they develop responsibility and commitment. These skills can be applied to friendships, education, and future careers.

Greater Sense of Self-Worth

In an age where so many people judge their self-worth based on the number of Instagram likes, it may seem difficult to teach children how to self-confidence. Volunteering can help. When children actively participate in community service, they learn that it doesn’t matter how young or small they may feel—they have the ability to change someone else’s life for the better. Community service increases a child’s confidence.

When children and youth volunteer, it benefits both them and the world around them. And if you’re looking for a Catholic school in Orlando where your children can be around others who believe in volunteer work, come visit us at St. Charles Borromeo. You can learn more about our curriculum and beliefs on our about us page.

A church can’t give you a step-by-step guide on how to raise your children the right way. However, as Catholics, we have a different compass for giving our children the support and care they need to grow into emotionally and spiritually-healthy adults. Here are some tips for raising children under a Catholic mindset.

What is Catholic Parenting?

Is parenting as Catholics different than how those of other faiths may raise their children? To put it simply, yes. To understand how Catholic families raise children, refer to Archbishop Chaput’s Theology of the Body. This text reminds us that, as with most things in life, actions speak louder than words—it’s our interactions with our children that teach them how to think about their relationships, life, faith, priorities, and morality. As Catholics, we do not approach these subjects with a step-by-step guide, but with a Catholic vision. Let’s take a look at what that means.

A Catholic Family Embraces Embodied Self-Giving

Through our senses, we’re able to express love from one person to another. This can be through reminding our children we love them, acts of service, spending quality time with them, or showing affection. Better yet, all of the above! These actions allow children to feel God’s love in ways that are tangible. Parenting with a Catholic vision embraces these principles by choosing methods that are the most bodily-based expressions of love.

A Catholic Family is Intimate

The Theology of the Body says that families are to be “Schools of Love.” Love can be measured by intimacy—and a little bit of love is not enough to build a strong, intimate familial bond with your children. This means that Catholics will sometimes need to organize their priorities so that the family is spending enough quality time together. While it may be tempting to keep your children in as many activities as possible, make sure they’re not so plentiful that they’re lowering the amount of quality time you can spend with them.

When parenting with a Catholic mindset, the question is not “What works for me?” but “What mindset does God want me to have about our family?” This question will help lead you down the path of raising children who are emotionally-healthy, morally-strong, and who believe in following in God’s way.

As a faith-filled community, St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School is committed to proclaiming the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. We are cultivating responsible, respectful, trustworthy individuals who are confident in their knowledge and compassionate in His service. If you’re interested in enrolling your child in an Orlando Catholic school and would like to see more about how St. Charles embraces a Catholic mindset in education, you can learn more on our about us page.

Catholics are deeply intertwined with rituals and traditions that remind us of our love of faith. Children are quick to pick up some of these habits—especially if they see them at home, at church, or at school. The community at St. Charles Borromeo has seen students pick up these habits, and today we’d like to highlight a few that are commonly found in our children.

Praying Before Each Meal

Catholic children learn early to give thanks to God before a meal. And it’s become such an intrinsic habit that it doesn’t matter whether that meal is being enjoyed at home or at a restaurant. They value this moment enough to take the time they need to give thanks instead of diving straight into their delicious food.

They Possess the Giving Spirit

Catholics often give back to the community, and children raised in a Catholic environment learn how to do this from a young age. They know that giving is one of the significant ways to show their faith, whether it’s by giving to a charity or volunteering in their community.

They Put Others Before Themselves

Although, charity isn’t the only way that Catholic children try to emulate their faith. This giving spirit stretches to most other parts in their life as well. They understand that there’s no value in being selfish. It brings them fulfillment to spread happiness through supporting and helping others.

They Go to Bed Early on Saturdays

For many children, Saturday is a day where they can spend the evening playing—and maybe extend their bedtime just a little bit. This isn’t the case for Catholic children who have to wake up early the next day for Mass. Instead of staying up a little later, they fall asleep earlier and wake up ready to worship.

Overall, Catholic rituals and traditions tend to be picked up by children over time. Once these habits are formed, can be a foundation for furthering faith. Have you noticed any of these habits in your child? If you want to learn more about the Catholic education that St. Charles Borromeo provides, you can learn more on our about us page.

As a faith-filled community, St. Charles Borromeo, an Orlando Catholic school, is committed to proclaiming the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. We are cultivating responsible, respectful, trustworthy individuals who are confident in their knowledge and compassionate in His service. If you want to learn more about Catholic schools in Orlando, visit our blog page or contact us today!