Guest blogger Andrea Givens: Take advantage of the summer to enhance your child's skills.

If you're like me, you can't wait for the school year to be over. All the pressure of homework, IEP meetings, awkward conversations with teachers and administrators about your child's behavior, packing lunches, report cards, assessments, tests. It all goes away and finally, we can relax.

Or can we? Many kids, typically developing and otherwise, lose some amount of academic skill during the summertime. The summer is a great time to enhance your special needs child's education with lots of gross-motor activities -- aka big muscles in the body activities. For us working moms, this presents an extra challenge, but we're certainly up to it. We've done more for less.

Helping your child develop these muscles can be fun and there are lots of things to do outdoors to facilitate that. Also, when you participate in these activities with your child, you're not only helping them develop gross motor skills, you're having fun together! Here are my faves:

1. Go bike riding. Whether your child is on a two-wheeler or uses training wheels, the most important thing here is that the bike must be powered by your child's own strength. In other words, no battery- or gasoline-powered equipment. Don't forget a helmet.
2. Take your child swimming. Swimming is an excellent activity because the movements require coordination and use all the large muscle groups. Plus, especially when it's hot outside, it's easy to get your kid in the pool. Be sure to take the appropriate safety precautions.
3. Play catch. Use a softer ball so it won't hurt if your child doesn't catch it -- or catches it with his or her body. Or, play catch with water balloons.
4. Jump rope. Make up silly rhymes or use the ones you already know. Or, jump rope to music with a really great beat.
5. Play "Simon Says." Remember that game? This time, be sure to include lots of gross motor skills like hopping, skipping, jumping, balancing on one foot, crawling and rolling.

Increasing your child's gross motor development sometimes means doing activities that seem just plain silly. If you're like me, I do them anyway, but nobody but my kid will ever see me hopping around like a kangaroo or waddling like a duck.

To learn more from Andrea and her son Zion, click here.