The summer holidays can be a challenging times for all kinds of reasons. There’s the packing, the kids being under your feet all the time rather than conveniently out of the house for six hours a day, but most of all, kids are at risk from totally forgetting everything they’ve learned over the last year in a few weeks of playing in the park and building elaborate Lego models.
However, the summer holiday is also an opportunity. Without a classroom and curriculum, children have an opportunity for much more self-directed and creative learning, and as their parent you’re in a great position to guide them towards just that. Here are five tips on how to do just that.
Ask about their own work
Kids are like any other artist – they’ll work primarily for their own satisfaction, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love an audience. When you see them playing Lego, drawing or building some giant monstrosity in Minecraft, ask them about it. Avoid questions like “What is it?” (to which the answer is almost always “Can’t you tell?”) but instead ask “Can you tell me about it?” “What’s this bit for?” “Why did you decide to make it that way?”
The answers will range from “Because it needs to be there for the lava trap to work” to “It just is”, but even if the answers are succinct, don’t be discouraged.
Follow their interests
Your child has their own interests and their own opinions on how they should spend their spare time. If you want to engage them during the holidays the trick is not going to be saying “You shouldn’t be interested in that! You should be interested in this!” Instead, talk to them about the things they’re interested in, and look for creative opportunities within that.
For example, some kids might like Power Rangers and Super Mario Bros. Neither of these things have any creative or educational value whatsoever. But you could spend hours designing new Mario levels or going through dinosaur books to come up with ideas for new Power Rangers.
Theme days
From there you can organise whole days of activities or even family trips out. Any kid of a certain age is going to love the Harry Potter books and movies. An imaginative parent can generate all kinds of activities out of that. Find Harry Potter themed recipes to make at home. See if you can write your own magic spells. Practice writing letters in the air with your wand. Get your child to write a letter to apply to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and then as a reward take them to the Great Hall Hogwarts itself!
Keep a diary
While you’re doing all these activities, encourage your kids to a keep a diary of their holidays – not just the theme days and the family outings, but the ordinary days. If your kids are writing something in their diary every day, they’re more likely to try to have something interesting to write in their diary.
Imaginary visitors
Alternatively, if diaries don’t work, how about imaginary friends? Whether they already have an imaginary friend, or you have to create one, you can encourage your children to be creative by getting them to think about these imaginary figures. Write letters to your children “from” these figures, be they ghosts, borrowers or tooth fairies, leave them under their pillows at night and encourage your children to write back. Get them to draw pictures of what they think their visitors look like and get them talking about what they think their visitors or like. Very soon their imaginations will take off.