Research over the years discovered that students lost a significant amount of what they learned over the summer school break According to thirteen recent studies the effect of summer break was most detrimental to math computation and spelling (Cooper et al.).

To help your child retain math and spelling skills, you can add some fun learning experiences at home or on vacation to help prevent the summer slide. In this post, I'll outline some ways you can sneak some math, reading, spelling, and comprehension skills to your daily routine without making it feel like a chore or a bore. 

I strongly believe in encouraging kids to attempt math tasks that are  challenging. but fun. Math Quests are a great way to do that in the classroom or at home.
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---- In case you've never heard of these teaching resources before, Math Quests are gamified worksheets filled with reading passages, math problems and puzzles. ​ ----

So, what are Math Quests  used for in the classroom? In this post, I aim to outline multiple ways these easy prep printables can be used as part of your curriculum. 

Adding some fun background music while completing a math or reading mystery can create a positive working atmosphere in the classroom. Your student detectives will feel more immersed in the mystery task and, hopefully, be more motivated to persevere through the more challenging questions and puzzles. Like a workout, the type of music you choose to go with the rhythm of the activity is important. So, in this blog post, I've rounded up some music track suggestions, from YouTube, for you to readily find and play when doing a mystery activity at home or in the classroom. 

For ELA based mysteries, I developed two series that are structured differently:
- The Once Upon a Crime Reading Mysteries
AND
- The Private Eye CSI Literacy Mysteries

I'm often asked what's the difference between the two, so I thought this week it would be helpful to write a post to explain the difference and show samples from each type of resource. 

With Earth Day around the corner, some of you may be doing the Earth Day Math Mystery, the Case of the Litterbug, as part of your themed math sessions. It's been around for a few years, and I've noticed every year some get confused with the tricky message revealed in CLUE 1. So, this year, I thought I'd write a short guide in the thinking process of this clue to help if it becomes too tricky or causes confusion.