With summer break around the corner, you’re probably busy planning family vacations, trips to the pool, barbeque parties, and summer camps. What most of us tend to forget is planning on how to fight the summer slide in kids. The educational ground that kids lose during this break is sometimes irreversible. A good idea is to plan the summer activities in such a way that having fun and learning are blended in well so that kids look forward to their summer breaks and not dread them.
Worksheets for kids
The online space has some vibrant and colorful worksheets for kids that are an absolute delight. Generally prepared by trained professionals and experienced teachers, these worksheets are useful resources that come in a variety of topics like social skills, gross motor skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, creative writing, reading, coloring, and more. Some educational websites habitually add new worksheets for kids before holidays and festivals like Easter, New Year, Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. These can also be downloaded during kids’ summer breaks to add an element of fun to their holiday learning schedule. You can get the prints and copies in color to make it that much more interesting for the kids—better a colorful, fun looking sheet than a plain black-and-white one, right? Maybe look to services like color copies offered by the likes of Printivity (visit their website here – https://www.printivity.com/copies/color-copies) for an affordable bulk copy job.
Art and crafts
A great way to keep the kids entertained and productively engaged is by indulging in arts and crafts. Connect with nature in the comfort of your home with summer crafts made from twigs, straws, nests, stems, dried leaves, flowers, etc. While the kids are engaged with their crafts, you can throw in a couple of minutes’ lecture on how fossils are made from dried leaves and flowers or why fruits fall down from the trees when they are dry.
Writing a diary
Writing a diary is one of the most popular ways of dealing with kids’ summer slide. Head to stationery shops together with your child and choose funky diaries or colorful scrapbooks and a set of new colored pens to start writing a diary. At the end of the summer holiday, you’ll have a beautiful summer journal complete with photos and tickets and the kids will have their writing skills sharpened!
Write letters
Why don’t you build the almost extinct hobby of letter writing? Write letters to granny or other elders who live away from you. They can talk about all the interesting things they plan to do during their breaks as well as stay in touch with some good old writing! You can find some cool worksheets for kids online too that help them with useful tips to write letters.
Summer reading challenges
Research and find out if any library in your locality is planning ‘summer reading challenges’. This has always been a very popular summer activity in the U.K. and it’s slowly becoming viral in the U.S. too. Children who read a certain number of books during their summer breaks are awarded certificates, which are most often handed out in the first assembly in the school after it reopens. These challenges are a great way to encourage kids to read during their summer breaks.
Last, but not the least, sneak in some learning with your child’s daily activities at home. Counting the pile of coins in their piggy bank, reading out the recipe while you’re baking, calculating the total number of hours they played in a day, adding up the digits on number plates on cars, or reading advertisement boards on the streets are some ways you can get your little ones to continue learning even during the longest break in their school year!
About the author: Corinne Jacob is a wannabe writer who is convinced that kids learn best when they’re having fun. She is constantly on the lookout for new and exciting ways to make learning an enjoyable experience. Corinne loves all things that scream out un-schooling, alternative education and holistic learning.