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Education

Slashdot Asks: What Will You (Or Your Kids) Learn This Summer? 81

Posted by timothy from the shameless-plugs-are-welcome dept.
For those in the northern hemisphere, summer is rapidly approaching, especially for those with kids. Camps, educational programs, and other activities are enrolling now, in advance of the long summer vacation. (Particularly long for Americans!) Aside from conventional sleepaway options for kids, there are science and technology courses, space camps, survival adventures, and more. Whatever your age, and whether on your own or as part of a formal group, do you have any specific learning activities planned for the summer, whether as participant or parent? Are there summer education opportunities you'd like to recommend to others, or ones you'd rate as not worth the price? (Naming details helps, in this context -- which space camp? How much does it cost?)
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Slashdot Asks: What Will You (Or Your Kids) Learn This Summer? More

Slashdot Asks: What Will You (Or Your Kids) Learn This Summer?

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  • I'm going to learn writing Slashdot articles. How hard can it be.

  • Not code.org's programs - he's a boy :-( (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'd get my son on a code.org program, but I can't because they pay teachers to exclude boys :-(

    http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/11/24/187255/codeorg-more-money-for-cs-instructors-who-teach-more-girls

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm a kid ( 18 yrs), but I was "taught" by my dad to code by reading "Introduction to Visual Basic 5.0" off of his work-at-home shelf. Don't know about other /.ers out there, but it seems to me to be all about devotion (Do you want to write code?). My dad never forced me to learn.

  • country (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We live in the city so I'm going to dump our kids at my parents over the summer, country style. The kids will get to roam around freely in fields, forests, lakes, watch the stars in the night and all of it.

    • Re:country (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday April 05, 2015 @04:37PM (#49411163)

      We live in the city so I'm going to dump our kids at my parents over the summer, country style.

      Same here. My kids will be staying with their grandparents on my wife's side, who live in Zhejiang, and speak zero English. In addition to tending to the chickens, and learning how to plant rice, I expect that they will considerably improve their Mandarin vocabulary.

    • We live in the city so I'm going to dump our kids at my parents over the summer, country style. The kids will get to roam around freely in fields, forests, lakes, watch the stars in the night and all of it.

      This is absolutely the right thing to do for younger kids. Do that plus take away most internet access and game consoles and make sure they're surrounded by books. They will play and read all summer long without much direction and learn more from it than we can remember not knowing.

    • so basically they will be in front of what ever panel they can find in the vicinity? I bet they hot rod the car to escape..

    • We live in the city so I'm going to dump our kids at my parents over the summer, country style. The kids will get to roam around freely in fields, forests, lakes, watch the stars in the night and all of it.

      You missed out being forced to wake up at 4am and milk the cows, then getting killed by wolves as they trudge home from their work in the fields in the evening.

  • Kite Hyrdofoiling (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Sunday April 05, 2015 @04:17PM (#49411103) Homepage
    I have always wanted to learn how to kite surf. I decided to do this this summer. The thing that kicked me over the edge was hearing about how some people have added a hydrofoil to the surf board, so I want to try that.

  • "Especially for those with kids" (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    > For those in the northern hemisphere, summer is rapidly approaching, especially for those with kids

    Summer is approaching for me, a single guy, at the same rate as it does for my next door neighbors, who do. Why the fuck even make that distinction?

  • college... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    $2500 for two classes this summer... operating systems and global technologies (I'm done with my major and minor all I need is any old crap filler classes to hit my 124 credits... )

    My brother-in-law (13 years old) normally does camps camps camps during the summer... this year the only one I know for sure is band camp, he plays trumpet. Now they live in lansing so they might have more opportunities than some cities. On the other hand, a year or two ago he went to a university camp several states away for a

  • I don't know, duh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Sunday April 05, 2015 @04:40PM (#49411181) Homepage

    What Will You (Or Your Kids) Learn This Summer?

    If I knew that already, I wouldn't be learning it this summer.

  • open european go tournament (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Two weeks of go-games, workshops, teaching games and more for my son and me ;-)

  • This summer (Score:3)

    by Minupla ( 62455 ) <minupla@noSpaM.gmail.com> on Sunday April 05, 2015 @05:03PM (#49411247) Homepage Journal

    Winter was freestyle skiing - she just finished that this week. Summer will be French camp, a museum camp, and Defcon/r00tz this year.

    Min

  • They would be going outside, having fun or doing whatever they like... because they are kids and summer should be theirs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      They would be going outside, having fun or doing whatever they like... because they are kids and summer should be theirs

      Doesn't mean you shouldn't avail yourself to non-traditional learning opportunities. Yes, outside is extremely important, but just as you exercise their muscles, so should you exercise their minds.

      Basically they can go outside to play, and learn at the same time - creativity (have them try to create a game while they play), sports (if they desire), engineering (try building a treehouse), a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tomxor ( 2379126 )

        It's so easy to learn, and there are plenty of activities (even simple "playing outside") where learning can happen. As a parent, all you need to do is encourage it. And also balance - it's completely normal to veg out and play video games as well - but only to end a day of exercising the body and the mind.

        My point is not that learning is bad, it's that excessive and forceful directed learning is bad. Summer should not be the time you use to try and force more learning on your child, it should be the time when you let them learn the most important type of learning in life... self learning. Play is just that, the beginning of self learning.

        Not to mention it's important for kids to actually have fun... Sure every kid is different and learn in different ways, however it's implicitly true that every kid will be h

  • Swimming (Score:3)

    by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <hcteks.retsim>> on Sunday April 05, 2015 @05:52PM (#49411355)

    My son is 18 months and will be in a Swim-Float-Swim class where they teach them basic survival swimming.

    Of course he'll also be learning talking, walking/running, playground, etc and all those other things kids learn between 18 and 24 months.

  • School is Year Round and Life Long (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Sunday April 05, 2015 @06:06PM (#49411395)

    School is never out. We homeschool. We're always learning. It's not classroom sit down book learning much of the time but real world things to a large degree. Projects are multi-discipline.

    The latest project our family is almost finished with:
    Building a USDA / State inspected modern meat processing facility (a.k.a. butcher shop)

    History, government, regulations, economics, business, math, engineering, material sciences, architecture, construction, plumbing, electrical, water supply systems, heating, ventilation, refrigeration, meat cutting and so much more...

    • Building a USDA / State inspected modern meat processing facility (a.k.a. butcher shop)

      History, government, regulations, economics, business, math, engineering, material sciences, architecture, construction, plumbing, electrical, water supply systems, heating, ventilation, refrigeration, meat cutting and so much more...

      Leatherface, chainsaw . . . ?

    • Nice. I have a deal with my kids that if they can learn the next grade's materials over the summer (with as much support as they need but relying on their own dedication) then they can homeschool next year. They're specifically interested in the homesteading kinds of opportunities they can't get at a government school or at home when government school dominates 9-10 hours of their day (for 2-3 hours of learning).

      • they can't get at a government school or at home when government school dominates 9-10 hours of their day (for 2-3 hours of learning).

        If they're getting 2 to 3 hours of actual learning at that school per day, keep sending them there because it's the best school in the conutry by about 3 orders of magnitude.

  • Right now two of my kids (10 and 8 years old) are having fun this Easter Holiday learning programming in OpenSCAD (a CSG 3D CAD modelling language). Yes, even a girly girl can have lots of fun with this, designing a lamp, a cool name plate, and a funny 3D cartoon face (all with carefully chosen colors of course) - on the first day. And hardly notice how much they're learning along the way. OpenSCAD is not a toy at all but a great visual way to get started with some basic programming language concepts.
  • My wife started taking my kids so a museum or a landmark every friday ("field trip Friday"). She just googled museums, planetariums, farms, anything that would be interesting to a 5 year old audience and gone. I like the results. It gets the kids thinking about other things and we avoid the pit of TV.

  • My daughter will be spending the Summer in Taipei studying Mandarin.

  • 6 minutes twice a week in an indoor skydiving facility for 6 weeks. It'll cost neighborhood of $1000, but that's still significantly less than a similar number of skydives. If you focus on flying on your belly, you'd be a pretty decent belly flyer at the end of that time. 'Course you might also have a new life-long habit as a wind tunnel rat.

  • Actually we'll go camping a lot, the kids are only five.

  • I will learn what the roads look like and feel like as well as what the coastline of every Great Lake will look like from my motorcycle. I'm going to ride around every single one of them.

    Next year I get to learn what it feels like to ride from Chicago to Anchorage, Alaska and back. And I assume how to dodge bears and elk.

  • Don't have kids, but the nephew is coming out for a chunk of the Summer. Last year list included:
    home repairs
    truck oil change/chassis lube/tire rotation rope climbing courses
    hot lunch meat w/melted, cheese sandwiches & scrambled eggs(how to make)
    how to do a fresh OS software install
    BF3
    a day at Busch Garden doing a little height de-sensitivity training on all the roller coasters
    shark fishing from a kayak.

    This summer will be:
    BF4
    SCUBA diving
    how to drive a stick shift truck(private roads for

    • I say "Man Stuff" but when his little sister hits 11 next year she'll be coming out for pretty much all the same. Though we'll have to add in getting the hair and toes done (the girlfriend can handle that business) in addition to the shark fishing (something the girlfriend also will be handling).

    • This sounds quiet dangerous:

      truck oil change/chassis lube/tire rotation rope climbing courses

      But also quite exciting.

  • This, I think, is one of the best ways to form a bond between me and my son: I teach him how to take care of bicycles, how to use tools and how some minor issues are fixed. This also increases his hand dexterity and other skills. We're both having fun doing this, and then riding our bikes.

  • First, we'll start out by going camping in the coastal redwoods. He'll be the camp fire starter as he usually is. Making smores is important :-)

    Next, he'll work on improving his cooking. Let's face it. If one wants to eat, it's important to be able to prepare meals. Nothing like Costco crap in a box or mac and cheese. Our meals are from scratch and they have been since he was born (I made his baby food... not a "helpless male" here). Cooking (like playing music, etc.) tends to bring people together a

  • kids want to do basketball camps so they will but I also ordered the next grade up of a state approved home school curriculum. I don't expect them to finish over the summer but it will definitely keep them learning and prepare them for the Fall.
  • Must take a vacation from screens now and then.

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