I detest summer.

Oh, not the long, excruciatingly hot days, sandal-wearing, trips to the beach, spraying kids with the hose, slip-n-sliding, and all the other classic summer events.

But I hate that my kids can go 2 1/2 months without any intellectual stimulation. You might as well open a hole in their heads and watch everything they learned in the last year start to pour out.

Of course, being who I am, I can’t sit idly by.

I ”structure” up summer — creating what I see as a balance of summer camps, free time and and activities, including the library’s summer reading program and those great summer activity workbooks.

My son used to groan when he’d see me pawing through the selections at Barnes and Noble and Borders. And the first couple weren’t all that great.

But eventually, I found some better options — a good variety of activities designed to keep them remembering the stuff they did the previous year and ensure their brains don’t slump. Kumon, especially, has good books for the pre-K kids, while the Summer Skills series has a good variety of activities for older grades.

Oh, my son still groans, but not as much.

This year was my daughter’s first year joining the summer activity book party — and she’s loving it so far. She’s learning to read, so some of the workbook activities are a stretch. You’d be amazed how hard it is to remember the sound an “h” makes. But she tries like a trouper.

With my son, who read early and excels in school, I’ve gotten the practice book for two grades above his level  — so he did the third-grade activities when he was preparing for second grade. That kept him from being too bored.

This year, his third-grade classwork was challenging enough that I want to reinforce the long division and multiplication. And his handwriting could use some help. So he’s got a fourth-grade activity book that focuses on those tops, plus adds in some geography and astronomy. I’ll toss the fifth-grade one at him if he knocks this out.

Here’s how I work it:  If the kids want to see ICarly, Hannah or Spongebob, or play video games, first they’ve got to give me a couple of pages in the workbook, read 20 minutes from one of their library books, and get in at least an hour of actual playtime (It is the Summer of Fitness, after all).

While they’re doing their summer camps, this can make for a fairly busy summer — but I do relent. Camps end in July, and August slows down. We drop everything but the playtime and activity books and add in a lot more beach and water-hose spraying.

So far it seems to be working. Meanwhile, I’ll keep hoping the school system adopts a year-round program so I don’t have to fret as much.

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