We ordered the "Summer Bridge Activities" for our 6 year old and she has excitedly worked her way through quite a bit of it all summer. She has read to us at every opportunity and practiced her writing by being my penpal. She made a special place where we write notes back and forth to each other.

She is anxiously counting the days when she goes back to ECC as a First Grader!

Her brothers, on the other hand, don't want to hear about school, think about school, or talk about school. They are totally in denial and refuse to face just how close it is. Have they worked on anything of value this summer? Not really. I little math as they have calculated what they've made from their summer jobs and what they can buy with it, but that's reaching I know.

They focused more on their social and athletic skills by swimming, playing baseball and hanging out.

When my kids were younger we would get a summer workbook and we would join the library or Borders' book club. I did worry about mush brain, and asked them to work on their books 45 minutes a day. Now that they are teens I worry less about mush brain because they have become more self-directed and motivated.
I do not have to ask them to read because they read constantly. Sometimes we have to ask them not to read at dinner.
I do try to find some outside activity for them to do. Summer is a good time to try something new or develop an interest. There are many useful, fun things to learn besides academic subjects. Learning something new keeps a person sharp while providing a break from the academic routine. This year we are taking horse riding lessons with Johnson Horse Solutions at Brynes Mills Stables (they're excellent, I might add and well worth the drive to this pretty spot).
My son has Boy Scout merit badges to work on which have kept him busy. My daughter went to leadership camp and came back with ideas for student council. Both of them are learning but they are really driving their own projects. And there's still plenty of time to play at the pool, hang out with friends and eat copious amounts of Ted Drewes and snow cones - which is all valuable too.

We try to get in 30-45 minutes of homework a day--which, of course, doesn't always happen. We enrolled H9 in a summer reading class that I think next summer all three kids will do. It was really great. We continue to do Kumon throughout the summer for Math and I bought the Summer Bridging Activities book which my soon to be second grader has diligently completed while my soon to be fourth graders have barely opened. Of course, a lot of learning comes from exploring the outdoors, making new friends and bonding with old ones, and doing fun activities in our City that we normally don't "have time" to do because of sports etc.

Although my son is still too young for school we try to incorporate educational activities in everything we do; the Magic House is great (and free on Wednesday and Friday evenings) but so is the Chilren's Garden at the Botanical Gardens, the Science Center, and the zoo. Many of the organizations have reciprocal partners in other cities so you get free or reduced admission.

If you have older kids give them a map, a budget, and have them plan a weekend trip - it will give them something to focus their energy on and give your family a nice getaway. The kids will be more invested in the trip and probably won't even realize that they are
practicing geography, math, etc.

It doesn't have to be expensive either; there are so many places close to St. Louis with awesome museums with reciprocal programs or AAA membership discounts.

Here's an article from STLtoday on 'Summer Homework':

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/article_28aeac20-7e06-5d4d-9aa2-5048aa2c228d.html