Grasshopper New Media Presents...

As a kid, I can remember long lazy summer days, filled with books. In reality, I don’t think that my summers were all that lazy, but it sure felt great to have a break from the school year routine. My mom, actually kept us pretty busy in the summers. We took beach house vacations, we went to sleep away camp, we went backpacking in the Sierras and camping all over the western states, we took enrichment classes in topics such as cooking and art, we went to sports day camps, we took swimming lessons, we went swimming in relative’s pools, in short, we were actually pretty busy in the summers. Not all of these activities happened all the time, every summer, but we were lucky enough to have many varied experiences during our summer days.

The one activity that happened with regularity was visiting the library. My brother and I were always stocked up on books. Especially if we would be traveling by car, we wanted to make sure that we would have enough books to make it through the trip. As I got older, this didn’t always work. I can remember before one beach vacation, checking out books based solely on how long they were, in hopes that I would not run out of books before the week was up. I believe this was the summer that I read The Winds of War and War and Remembrance and even started in on War and Peace. But, even as a younger kids, we always did the summer reading programs at the library and had no problem earning the rewards.

I am not sure if my mother set up our summers to be deliberately educational, or if she was just hoping that the more we were busy, the less we would be bothering her. But, my summers were so filled, that I could not help but gain experiences, memories, and knowledge that would last a lifetime. I do think that there is such a great value of have the summer be a time where the pressure of school is gone, the deadlines are just a memory and that the learning takes place in a way that kids do not even realize that they are learning. I would not want to turn summertime into all learning all the time. I don’t even know if I would want to be sneaky and try to disguise learning as fun. But, there is so much to be learned just by doing new things and going new places.

I know that the things I learned in the summers of my childhood went well beyond the book learning of the classroom. There is a huge difference in reading about the westward expansion and the trials of the settlers traveling over the mountains and actually seeing the monument to the Donner Party at Donner Pass that shows just how amazingly high the snow was that terrible winter. At week long sleep-away camps, I learned about responsibility and making new friends. In our annual packing trek through the Sierra Nevada’s, I learned about the wonders of nature and the care and keeping of llamas while using them as pack animals. I spent time learning geology from the guides at the Grand Canyon, and about the formation of geysers from from a ranger at Old Faithful. I learned about the dangers of rip currents after being rescued by a lifeguard in Newport Beach and how to catch the perfect boogie boarding wave from my cousin. I learned how to play a mean game of cribbage and how to roast the perfect marshmallow for my s’mores on camping trips with my grandparents. I also learned the value of having a trusty stack of books to keep me company on long car trips and on hot afternoons by the beach.

I hope to give my kids the gift of experiences throughout their summer vacations. We might not always be on the go. We might actually have afternoons to just enjoy our time to do nothing. But, one of the best parts of my job is having a full 2 months to explore this world we live in with my family. This summer we will be spending three weeks with my family in California. We will have the requisite visit with Mickey Mouse, it will be Jack Jack’s first. We will also have a trip to the mountains for a week and we will have time to spend at the beach or just hanging out at the pool. Knowing my kids, we will also be carting along a box of books everywhere we go. In fact we may have to hit up my hometown library to restock, part way through the visit. Back in Indiana, Violet will spend a week at a YMCA camp and Dash will get his first experience with a park day camp. I have nothing planed that is explicitly for learning purposes. But, if there summers were anything like mine, I hope that the memories and the experiences will serve them well for years to come.

by In The Fast Lane

Photo graciously provided by …..dotted….., through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved