summer assignments
Staying active in learning over the summer break is beneficial in helping students retain their skills and creates smoother transitions for the coming school year. All grade levels at PCS have required summer assignments in the subjects below.
Reading
Summer reading is a required activity at PCS. The great books on our reading list will stretch your child’s imagination and prepare your child for the upcoming school year.
Students will often resist reading books above their comfort level. It is important to include books in their pleasure reading that are somewhat challenging, books that you may occasionally have to help them push through. The goal is to continuously raise the reading level of your student, and we hope the books listed in the link below will be a helpful resource.
Classical Christian Education Support Loop: 1000 Good Books List (biblicalhomeschooling.org)
Required summer Reading
We have a required reading time for each student based on rising grade level.
Required Reading Time: 4 days each week in June, July, and August:
Kindergarten: 10 minutes per day
Grade 1: 15 minutes per day
Grade 2: 20 minutes per day
Grades 3-4: 30 minutes per day
Grades 5 and up: 45 minutes to 1 hour per day
(These are minimum requirements; your child may certainly read for longer times!)
Students entering Grades 3 and higher also have at least one book they are required to read over the summer.
These books will be sent home with students at the end of the year and must be returned in the fall. Students should be prepared for classroom discussion and a simple quiz about their book upon returning to school in August.
Grade-level required reading assignments
Summer reading assignments for rising 3rd grade and higher may be found in the list below.
Rising 3rd Grade D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths
Rising 4th Grade Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer
Rising 5th Grade Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages by Susan Wise Bauer
Rising 6th Grade Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times by Susan Wise Bauer
Rising 7th Grade Story of the World Volume 4: The Modern Age by Susan Wise Bauer, and The Call of the Wild by Jack London (please checkout from local library)
Rising 8th Grade The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (please checkout from local library), and Beowulf
Rising 9th Grade To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (please checkout from local library in the Unabridged, Original Version.
Rising 10th Grade Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (please checkout from local library), and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Rising 11th Grade Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Rising 12th Grade The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (please checkout from local library), and Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri
New Students Only:
New students will be required to read the following books in addition to those listed above (except for Rising 7th Grade, who only need to complete the readings listed below).
NEW Rising 4th Grade students will also be required to read D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths.
NEW Rising 5th Grade students will also be required to read Story of the World Volume 1 and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths.
NEW Rising 6th Grade students will also be required to read Story of the World Volume 1 and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths.
NEW Rising 7th Grade students will be required to read Story of the World Volume 1, D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge.
NEW Rising 8th, 9th, & 10th Grade students will also be required to read Story of the World Volume 1 and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths.
math
It is important to keep your student’s math skills sharp over the summer months. Mathematics is a subject in which new skills and procedures build on previously learned material. To best prepare students for the coming year and to help them maintain mastery of what they have already learned, we require each student to complete grade specific summer math work.
Summer Math Assignments
For students in Grades 1-5, please download the packet in the table below for the grade your child will be entering in the fall. Note that students entering kindergarten are not required to complete a math packet.
Students entering Grades 6 and higher should contact Mr. Ed LaRock (ed.larock@pcsrh.org) for login information for our summer online math program at IXL.com. The required sections each grade must complete on IXL may be found in the table below.
Please encourage your student to work as independently as possible and without the use of a calculator. It is beneficial for students to work a little at a time throughout the summer.
Summer math assignments will be due the first day of school and will be graded on completion.
Mastery of concepts reviewed in the summer math work will also be assessed within the first two weeks of school.
The internet is full of helpful sites for both practice and help, including xtramath.org (for basic fact practice), and ixl.com and kahnacademy.org (for help and tutorials on math concepts by grade level).
latin
Returning Students Only
Students who have completed 1st Form Latin or Henle Latin: download vocabulary review
Students who have completed 2nd Form Latin, Henle Latin, or higher: download vocabulary review
Cursive
All students entering Grade 2 and higher should practice their cursive handwriting skills over the summer.
Cursive handwriting is taught to PCS students in Grades 1-2 and should be maintained over the summer.
For students entering Grades 3-5 who have not yet learned cursive, we recommend New American Cursive Books 1 & 2 to prepare your child to use cursive in the fall.
For students entering Grades 6 or higher, we recommend Teach Yourself Cursive.
Another option for review is the website K5learning.com. You may download free worksheets to practice letters, words, or sentences. Please note that a few of the capital letters differ from the New American Cursive used by PCS. Please use the letter writing guide here for proper letter formation.