Hunter Giroux, 6, of Wiscasset was measuring distances on paper Aug. 6 in “Brownie” feet. The four-inch units take their name from an elf-like character helping the Wiscasset School Department’s summer students keep the math skills they built over the past school year.

Brownie also helped students stay on-task in class, according to Chris Derby, one of the educators and the creator of the character and doll inspired by Scottish folklore.

“Sometimes, he’s naughty,” Kylee Smith, 7, of Wiscasset said about Brownie.

Reminders to Brownie about what he should be doing helped students get their focus back, Derby explained.

Math and reading skills can slip without practice over summer vacation; the effect known as the “summer slide” leaves students with some relearning to do in the fall before new gains can be made, said the summer program’s coordinator Dawn Jones and the school department’s curriculum coordinator Pat Watts.

Preventing or minimizing the slide is the goal of summer school, which was back in Wiscasset for the first time in years, except for required special education that had continued, Watts said. About 25 students in kindergarten through eighth grade completed the program, held four days a week for five weeks at Wiscasset Primary School. The department called this year’s program Summer Up, instead of summer school.

“We wanted to be a unique program because we wanted kids to have a positive experience ... that sort of carries them into the fall with a more positive frame of mind, feeling more confident and more excited about what they can do,” Jones said during the program’s final day Aug. 6.

The morning featured a celebration of learning. Students’ families joined them in classes and a walk next door to Morris Farm where a lot of the summer’s learning had happened.

Students harvested Swiss chard for the Boothbay Region Food Pantry and the farm store, farm educator John Affleck said. They also grew radishes, flowers and other plantings as a hands-on project that turned some reluctant gardeners into engaged ones over the five weeks, he said.

“Learning outside, under the sun and in the soil is exhilarating.”

Along with tea and kale chips to sample, Affleck showed families a bowl of ice cubes containing borage flowers the students had grown as a companion plant to their tomato plants. Borage attracts bees and wasps that protect tomatoes from hornworms; and its leaves cool and moisten the soil, Affleck said.

Minutes later, Summer Up student John “J.J.” Pray picked a large summer squash from the garden. Brother Isaac Pray, 12, and their parents John and Misty Pray of Wiscasset joined the 6-year-old for Thursday’s celebration.

“He’s loved it,” Misty Pray said about her son’s experience in the program. 

Addressing families earlier, educational technician Sherri Eckert described the activities at Morris Farm as a great project that served as a basis for work on measuring, tallying and writing.

This summer’s federally funded, $48,400 program was open to students who needed help maintaining skills or catching their skills up with their grade level; however, plans are in the works with the state to try to open the program to all students next year, Watts said. 

Asked how the program went, she said: “I think that for the first year, I’m encouraged, and I’d like to see it built upon and have more enrollment.” Jones did an excellent job of making it engaging for students, she said.

Multiple students interviewed Aug. 6 said writing was their favorite part of the program.