It’s never too early to approach the summer strategically. For middle school students, this is an especially good moment to explore new interests, to add a scholarly twist to family vacations, or to integrate academic enrichment into camps and free weekends. As you look ahead to your time off, consider these easy tips to make the summer count:
SCENARIO 1: FAMILY VACATION
After so many months and years of delayed plans due to the pandemic, many families will use this summer to travel domestically and abroad. If your family has a trip planned, consider your academic interests as your family plans the itinerary and look for ways to learn together, focus on incorporating these interests, specific to your location, into your travel plans.
If your family is planning a trip to Rome, for example, take on the role of personal tour guide at a specific museum or site. Do all the research beforehand and present a short summary to your family when you arrive. Consider the Colosseum or even just a statue at the Vatican Museum. By taking ownership of one destination or historic location, you will not only learn new facts and historical context, but also teach the rest of your family! At the end of each day, write down a few things you learned and their highlights. Once you’re back home, you can spend an evening together remembering the trip and doing more research on the places you found most interesting. Who knows? This might spark a new interest for you!
Before you take off, ask your parents to purchase a book on Ancient Italy so you can start reading on the plane. A sample reading list could look something like this:
- Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jérôme Carcopino
- Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome by Lesley Adkins and Roy A Adkins
- Rome and Her Empire by Barry Cunliffe
- The Colosseum by Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard
- Ancient Inventions by Peter James and Nick Thorpe
- The Lost World of Pompeii by Colin Amery and Brian Curran Jr
Another great resource on Ancient Rome is this PBS series and educational website, The Roman Empire in the First Century. You could plan a movie night and watch it as a family before leaving.
SCENARIO 2: SLEEPAWAY CAMP
Do you love the great outdoors? Are you calling home with stories of canoe adventures? Summer camp provides a great natural setting to go above and beyond traditional camp activities and seek enrichment in environmental science and ecology. Talk to a counselor and plan an experiment to test the pH level in the lake. Or what about taking lake soil samples from different campsites for a comparative analysis? If you’re interested in the local wildlife, you could keep a journal where you sketch every animal track you find and then investigate with the help of a reference guide. This could turn into a poster project to hang in the dining hall or a scavenger hunt with other campers!
Cozy nights in cabins are also a great time to work on a reading list. In addition to required reading for school, add some books that delve deeper into one particular subject (audiobooks are also a great alternative).
Here are some books we love right now:
- The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science, Armand Marie Leroi
- Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach, James W. Nybakken
- The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Brian Greene
- The Edge of the Sky, Roberto Trotta
- Nothing: Surprising Insights Everywhere from Zero to Oblivion, Jeremy Webb
- Science for the Curious Photographer: An Introduction to the Science of Photography, Charles S. Johnson Jr.
- The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas, Jerry Dennis
SCENARIO 3: THEMED EXCURSIONS/STAYCATION
Ask your family to commit to at least one weekend focused on a single academic theme. Do you live in New England? What if you investigated the Revolutionary War with an immersive two days in Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts? You could visit the local historic society, watch a documentary on Paul Revere, or tour a historic home.
Do you live near an art museum? Research the permanent collection online beforehand and become the “resident expert” on one artist. As you tour the museum, share the artist’s biography with your family when you view their paintings and compare the artist’s style with other works in the gallery space.
Do you love math? If you’re visiting or live in or near New York City, pop into MO Math (National Museum of Mathematics) and check out their innovative exhibits that promise to “engage visitors of every age, from 1 to 100!” Perhaps this visit sparks further curiosity which leads you to research online summer math programs for middle school students! You could also spend summer break preparing for fall math Olympiads and other competitions. Check out Perennial Math competitions or the Math League, which offers a summer tournament online.
MORE ENRICHMENT…
Interested in more enrichment opportunities? We would be happy to help you identify how best to leverage the summer months or school year through our Enrichment Program. For rising 8th graders, this is a great moment to begin our exclusive College Admissions Private Counseling. In addition to one-on-one enrichment, we will create a personalized, targeted action plan just for you. Contact us now!
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