Customer Reviews

Summer Bridge Activities: 4th Grade to 5th Grade

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book to use to work with your child a little (10 minutes) every day during the summer months to keep the basic math and language skills up to snuff. It has lots of motivating rewards built in and my kids actually agreed to do it, in order to get the rewards. It was also a good opportunity for me to sit down with each of them and learn what they did and did not know from the expected grade-level skills. And to focus on the short-falls. I have used each of the books in the series now for the last 2 years and will again this year.

We've used the Summer Bridge series for 4 years with our kids and love the product. The series covers math, reading, and writing with equal emphasis. There are occasional activities that are fun rather than just educational. As a parent and educator, I would highly recommend this.

We started using the bridge books between Kindergarten and 1st grade. This books are wonderful for helping maintain and sharpen skills over the summer. Each page takes no more than 20 minutes to do. I love the spelling lists and the reading lists that are in each book as well.

Like most kids my son does not look forward to having to do a little work over the summer but this book gives you maximum results for minimal effort. He enjoys setting a goal and reaping the rewards that come from it. The tracking charts in this book make it very easy to do.

This book was great except I felt some of the activites were a little too easy or too hard and some kind of ridiculous! Like looking up your favorite restaurant in the phone book?!?!

Jillian

After many summers of inconsistently creating my own academic work for my children to complete, I decided to try the Summer Bridge Activities books. I purchased the 1-2 book and the 4-5 book for my boys. We are only through week three, but I am very satisfied and will continue to purchase these books in the future. The grade 4-5 book has a nice balance of busy work and thought provoking writing assignments. The structure of the book seems to take the pressure off of me, so I don't feel like I am hounding them to do their work. I put the books out at breakfast and they are usually finished in 20-30 minutes. I think they will cruise right into the school year without a hitch.

The Summer Bridge series has always been our favorite way to retain skills that were learned the year before over the summer break. This workbook is no exception. The exercises are comprehensive, alternating writing, math, geography, history and logic activities in a fun and challenging way!

I guess my kids are not the shiny, happy typical kids that these books are made for (and whose parents feel compelled to write here.) They hate summer bridge. Hate it with every fiber of their being. I've tried rewards, incentives, everything I can think to get them to do front/back daily and its a constant struggle with tears and anger. Can they do the work? Sure. Is it good for them to stay academically challenged in the summer? Sure. Is it worth hours (and I mean hours) of fighting every day to check a page off the list? After two straight years, of this, I'm not so sure anymore.

The work is very simple and straight forward, with the exception of some of the geography and science pages in the 4-5 grade book. At one point I actually called the company and asked them where the reference material was because I couldn't find the terminology they were using anywhere on-line or in older text books. They promised to email me the link to the source material (which they didn't.)

My kids are very bright and perform very well in school and don't seem to be the kind to need extra work to keep those skills up. We spend our summers at theatre workshops, music camps and university-based summer classes and extra piano lessons and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not wasting a lot of time and emotion on something that is making them resent school work.

Great way to keep the kids from watching too much TV, while grandma' watches them during the summer. At my house we have a Summer Prize Jar, which includes various summer activities we can do as a family with little or no cost (i.e. hiking, bowling, skating, camping in the backyard, etc.) When they complete a week's worth of their Summer Activity workbook, they get to choose a prize. It keeps them motivated, excited and most importantly learning!!

I was very happy with this book for my son going into 5th grade. I wanted him to keep up his math skills - the book is wonderful for that! There are some sections (social studies, history) that I ended up crossing off because I thought it was just too hard. Some of the writing I changed up a little to make it more interesting for my son (who doesn't want to write!) I will definitely do this again next summer.

School review books were well appreciated by grandchildren over the summer, for something to do during the down moments, and help them not forget their school work. I appreciated the reasonable price and quick shipping.