Grade-appropriate tips on how to spend the last week of summer vacation

Here are some ideas based on grade-level material for the last days of summer vacation, or weekends through the year. The Bee invites teachers to post comments and additions below the story.

KINDERGARTEN

Students study history in terms of things changing over time; gain basic map and globe skills; separate factual literature from fiction.

SCHOOL WALK: This is the week to walk and talk around the empty campus and get your child excited about starting school. Point out the bathrooms, play area, cafeteria and the office.

ANY MUSEUM: Lots of things to point to showing how things used to be, talk about how things have changed over the years and ways they might be different years from now.

THE ZOO: The Fresno Chaffee Zoo (www.fresnochaffeezoo.com) has the advantage of lots of shade, but any zoo or aquarium gives wonderful opportunities for language development, talking about animals and life in jungles, oceans and deserts.

FIRST GRADE Students learn about citizenship, voting, patriotic songs and symbols; find towns, states, nations, continents, oceans and compass points on a map; add and subtract; tell time; use money.

COMPASS WALK: Walk to the store noting compass directions. Talk about the weather and how it changes along the way. When you get there, have your child make a small purchase, selecting the right bills and coins. Walk back trying to reverse the compass path.

LIBRARY OUTINGS: Head to the public library and look in the children's section for a favorite author or topic. Look for your child's top interest -- cake making, airplanes, drawing -- in the grown-up section, looking for photos and graphics. Sign up your child for a library card. Have your child read easy, well-loved books to dolls, stuffed toys or family pets.

SECOND GRADE

Students study family history; find mountains, major rivers on maps; learn about trade, food production and making laws; learn measuring; study lives of key individuals in history.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK: The history of Yosemite is full of great stories of individuals and of how laws kept the land as a park (www.nps.gov/yose). Track your trip on a map, pointing out the mountains, river and lakes. Check out the Indian Village by the visitors center and Pioneer Yosemite History Center. Bring along a measuring tape and check distances between anything handy.

FAMILY HEROES: Look back in genealogy (www.familysearch.org) or family scrapbooks and find people of note and war veterans from the child's history. Talk about how these people made a difference, how their everyday lives were different without computers or refrigerators. Trace where they lived on a map.

THIRD GRADE

Students learn about American Indians, local waves of settlement; basic structure of government; multiplication and division; estimating and rounding.

McHENRY MANSION & MUSEUM: These Modesto landmarks on I street at 13th and 14th streets (www.mchenrymuseum.org) are chock full of local history and flavor of the times. Make the trip a scavenger hunt: Find something a lady would wear or use -- a hat, an iron -- something a farmer would use, and so on.

KNIGHTS FERRY: A covered bridge leads to this early settlement where once Dr. Knight did indeed provide ferry service. On the drive, estimate the cost of lunch or add up miles between major roads, rounding the distances.

FOURTH GRADE

Students study California history, its capital and regions; learn longitude and latitude; work with fractions, decimals and negative numbers.