Star Wars Workbooks helps eliminate the summer slide

The summer slide can happen anytime. As a greater definition the summer slide is that period when the kids aren’t in school and the things that they learned the previous year start to slip away from their mind. “I can spell cat!”, I remember telling my parents at the end of first grade*. It’s obvious my parents never did after school or summer work books to reinforce my studies. My response to said 7 year old would’ve been, “That is great, but what else can you spell?” As a family we do workbooks almost every day. The Star Wars Workbooks are some of the best out there for introducing or reinforcing math, reading or writing to reluctant kids who need a little Force fun with their education.

When our 8 year old was 4 years old he did Preschool Number Fun and Preschool ABC Fun books. From there he went on to do several others in the series that until recently went up to second grade. Third and fourth grade Star Wars fans rejoice because Workman Publishing has broadened the series to include 3^rd Grade Math, 3^rd Grade Reading and Writing, 4^th Grade Math and 4^th Grade Reading and Writing.

He’s a smart second grader, but a little shy about entering into something new. I was quite surprised when he willingly dived into the Star Wars 3^rd Grade Math book and started correctly doing the problems. Initially I thought about asking him to wait a moment so I could introduce the concepts to him, but Luke and a series of space ships had already taken care of that for me.

As a former educator that’s a large reason why I really like these books. They effectively introduce the concepts to those students that have the building blocks in place to accept what’s being presented. The books lead each lesson page with an example that’s clearly explained, most of the time with a very apt Star Wars parallel. By giving readers a real-life example of how the math equation or English lessons should be correctly done you’re setting students up for success.

“You’re not in 3^rd grade, how do you know that?” one of his friends asked when they were in the house as we were finishing up a page. He shrugged his shoulders and the two rambled off to the backyard to play.

As a parent you might be thinking that the books are too much carrot and not enough stick. You like your educational resources the old fashioned way, flavorless tack with barbs as you try to engage with them. In some instances and for some students, that method and that format do just fine. I understand that, we didn’t trim the crust off of our children’s sandwiches too, but then got tired of him not eating them.

As a frugal parent, each of the Star Wars Workbooks retail for $9.99 and are roughly 90 pages. They don’t teach themselves, but they do have more of a welcoming front than other student workbooks that are options for your summer slider prevention. Even as a simple summer slide prevention goal you could challenge your child to complete one page a day. What will happen is that they will willingly and eagerly do two pages or more because they want to count the droids, find the shapes in the clones or diagram the sentence about the Death Star.