Summer break is wonderful. It is also approximately 400 days long when you have two boys under six.
Our oldest just finished kindergarten and will be heading into first grade this fall. He is amazing with numbers. Give him a math problem and he is ready to go. Reading and word recognition, however, are still things we’re working on and I didn’t want everything he learned this year to quietly disappear somewhere between popsicles and sprinkler days.
I also didn’t want to spend the summer fighting with him over worksheets, because even though I enjoyed being a student as a kid, worksheets just make everything feel like a chore.
Enter the Summer Brain Quest: Between Grades K & 1 workbook.
I used Brain Quest books when I was a kid, which feels both nostalgic and like a personal attack on how quickly time is moving. They still have the same colorful, playful feeling I remember, and the activities cover a mix of reading, writing, phonics, counting and other skills he worked on during kindergarten.
The book is divided into manageable sections, so instead of vaguely telling him he needs to “do some schoolwork,” we can give him one clear goal: finish a chapter. Not all at once, of course.
That feels attainable. There is a beginning, an end and no stack of worksheets silently judging either of us from the kitchen counter. Plus we get to add stickers to the map in the back of the book to see how far we’ve gotten.
We’ve also connected each completed chapter to his downtime screen use. Once he finishes a chapter, he earns a game he can choose during his next screen-time break. He knows exactly what he needs to complete, and I don’t have to repeatedly negotiate how many pages count as “enough.”
Everybody wins. Or at least everybody complains slightly less.
I especially like that the book mixes in the number activities he already feels confident doing with the reading and word-recognition practice that requires a little more effort. He gets some quick wins while still working on the skills we want to strengthen before first grade.
We are not trying to recreate a full school day at home. Some days we do a chapter. Some days we are busy, everyone is tired and the workbook stays exactly where we left it.
But having one small, achievable goal has made summer practice feel much less overwhelming—for both of us. He gets to work toward something he enjoys, I know we’re keeping those kindergarten skills fresh, and we still have plenty of time left for the important summer curriculum: playing outside, eating snacks and asking me when screen time starts.
Parent Picks
We have a six-year-old and a four-year-old. Below are the Brain Quest books we’re using this summer to keep on track.
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