Please advise on the best summer activities for a rising sophomore at high school. he is spending 1 month doing camp counsellor volunteering and a business exposure camp. Dont want to wast the second summer month doing nothing. havent planned anything yet . Don’t want him doing pay for play type of camps. 15 yr too young to do reasonable jobs other than fast food places… will more volunteering add to the college apln process ? or should he do an enrichment course to get a start on the 10th grade? if left alone, risk of just playing video games and watching youtube. so cant let than happen…
should he get a head start on slow SAT prep ? as it is a marathon not a sprint.
I don’t think it kills his chances to have time off. Hard to make a month really productive on his own. It is early for SAT prep. I’d encourage him to read at least an hour a day, whatever he wants. That in itself is a boost for test scores.
Does he have any ECs he can hone skills for during that time?
He is going to do xc training with high school 3 days a week in the evening. Reading Ah! that would be great if he would do that. He doesn’t like reading unfortunately . We have given up on that aspect after years. He likes photography. wonder if a camp in that would be good for him ?
" I don’t think it kills his chances to have time off. Hard to make a month really productive on his own. It is early for SAT prep—" if he wants to give SAT end of sophomore summer, starting a year early is not too early I would think. slow and steady ??
My kid participated in Scouts during his summers but spent the rest (most) of the time playing video games, surfing, and sleeping, no test prep or “enrichment”programs at all. It was the break he needed to recharge between rigorous academic years. IMO, they’re only kids once.
absolutely. Agreed! but everyone around us is doing some great thing or other and makes us look unimaginative or stupid. Scouts is a big summer activity however so that might be enough by itself
Well… reading is the best SAT prep there is. I’d renew that fight if it were my kid. It is VERY difficult to score well on the English/Reading sections without strong reading skills. If he takes the ACT, my opinion is that the science section also requires strong reading skills. Prepping with SAT prep books is a hard (and sometimes impossible) way to raise those scores. Let him read anything — sports magazines, any kind of actual book he wants, etc.
Reading books of one’s own choosing vs. prepping for SATs and slogging through workbooks…I know which one my kids would choose. :-??
yes. got a subscription for runner’s magazine as he is in XC.
How about Sports Illustrated? Or biographies of great runners?
Nice. biography of runner sounds great! never thought of that. will look on amazon.thanks
Fishing, swimming and the like sound good to me.
I would borrow a few books about running/runners etc. from the library and scatter them around the living room… maybe he will pick up one and read a few pages and get sucked into reading the whole thing. 
That said, don’t oversell his sport to him.
You have a very good point.I will try your idea of scattering them around.
Nothing wrong with some relaxing time. Maybe some family outings?
Is there a volunteer activity he is interested in? I would look into option that he may be able to start in the summer and continue into the school year (if he is so inclined).
Family trip?
What are his interests/passions beyond running? Summer is a good time to delve into and develop those. Perhaps something he wants to develop but hasn’t had a chance to do yet.
If he’s into photography, look at local art schools for courses. Also, he could use his photography skills to take photos for local nonprofits, your local newspaper, for political campaigns or local causes he believes in.
Going to St Lucia after school ends !Much needed vacay. August is the month pondering about…He is doing what he likes and volunteering in summer camps in July.
yes those are all great ideas .
Swim team! Lots of fun and socialization and purpose.
We planned summer vacations during the HS summer years before our kids worked full time. Both went to summer music programs for 4-6 weeks. Then we did a family vacation. Actually one of our kids was interested in looking at colleges that summer so we combined our family trip to see relatives with a few college visits…nothing fancy, just exploration.
We knew summer vacation ops would decrease as the kids got older so we took advantage of the time while we could!