Are you considering ways to combat summer slide for rising 6th grader? Summer Brain Quest: For Adventurers Between Grades 5 & 6 may be the answer. The 160-page workbook engages learners across all core subject areas.

Since we are on summer break, we have put away our regular textbooks, but I didn’t want my daughter to steer too far away from completing intentional academic work regularly throughout the summer. I do believe that summer slide exists, but not only that I have found that it is hard for learners to jump right back into structured assignments after taking three or so months off from such lessons. Summer Brain Quest: For Adventurers Between Grades 5 & 6 offers a nice balance to our summer break because my daughter can control the amount of work she does, and she completes activities in her workbook without question.

Summer Brain Quest: For Adventurers Between Grades 5 & 6 has seven levels for learners to complete before receiving their Summer Brainiac Award. Each level includes some form of the following:

• Grammar skills such as parts of speech, punctuation, dictionary usage, and more
• Literature based activities such as reading comprehension of various text styles, using context clues, figurative language, and more
• Math review over previously taught content such as division with fractions, word problems, volume, and more
• Social studies activities such as map skills and texts about different civilizations
• Science lessons and vocabulary

Each level includes about 12 pages of activities. As the learner works through the level, there are opportunities to add stickers to the Summer Brain Quest Map.  The goal is for your child to sticker as many paths as possible before the end of summer.  Not only does the workbook provide lessons, but there are also suggestions for grade level books to be read during summer reading. The suggestions include both fiction and nonfiction books. There is also space beneath each book suggestion for your child to write a review about the book. I think is a great addition, and a great opportunity for my daughter to purposefully write about a few of her summer reading selections.

If your summer goal is to keep your incoming 6th grade engaged in learning, I would recommend Summer Brain Quest: For Adventurers Between Grades 5 & 6 because the lessons offer review over previous taught content, and it also introduces learners to topics they may have not yet learned. For instance, my daughter hasn’t yet learned all the Greek or Latin prefixes and suffixes, but one of the quests focused on Latin and Greek roots. Summer Brain Quest: For Adventurers Between Grades 5 & 6 retails for $12.95.

-Product review by Latonya Moore, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July, 2018