Summer holiday activities: How to keep learning alive over the school holidays

summer holiday activities
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The countdown is on to the summer holidays – day after day of school-free easy, breezy life. Of course, in theory this sounds amazing, and just what everyone needs. Especially our little humans who so desperately need some down time and less structure to re-calibrate for September. But then what to do if you don’t want your children to return to the classroom totally cold in September when back to school rolls around? Here are some top tips from fab fellow parenting bloggers on summer holiday activities to keep your children’s toes dipped in the water of learning over the school hols.

Love your library

Check our your local Library for summer holiday activities such as their summer reading challenge. The more books your children read, the more stickers they collect. My son goes wild for it! – The Cheshire Wife  

Collect memories

Get a shoe box and collect memories of their summer holiday activities. Tickets, photos, leaflets, natural items like shells. Anything to remind them of what they have done over the summer. If they are still only small, get them to talk about it to develop their vocabulary and keep up the creativity. If older, get them to add a sentence using adjectives about the item they have put In the box. Don’t ask them to write lots – most children hate that so just something quick. Instead, keep it fun.  They can take the box to show friends and family or back to school at the start of the new term. – Popitha

Learn about history with the National Trust

We love making use of our National Trust membership. Most places have an awesome play park which my three boys love exploring after we have looked around the properties. We’ve been learning about families and the ‘olden times’. Great for history! – The Mum Diaries

Enjoy everyday learning

After doing home schooling I realised a lot of what we do anyway is learning. Visits to museums are always great and reading information boards together. You can then top it up with some extra research at home. Make the library a part of your week, keep them reading. Just look for the learning in everything you do. For example, when baking, there’s an opportunity to learn about weights and measures. – Pink Pear Bear 

Note it!

Give them a little notebook where they can write down something from their day, add a photo in or stick something in to remember what they did. Things like finding a peacock feather, or photos of them experiencing a farm. It’s a very visual way of recalling their summer holiday activities and it really helps them look forward to school and sharing their little diary. – Ready Freddie Go

Use the power of fun

Think of some games to make learning fun. For example, if you’re making a lemonade stand, have them design and write the banner, work out how much money it costs, then the maths of people paying for it etc. Or even just playing shops inside, writing out little price tags of things around the house to “sell” just trying to make it as fun as possible so they don’t notice they are still learning! – Adventures of a Mum

Create a love of learning

Setting a culture at home where learning is fun, and something you would do naturally can help children to make sure they don’t ‘separate’ learning at school, and real life at home. Using school knowledge in real life scenarios will help, such as writing a shopping list, having a budget and finding a total, working out change etc. Problem solving in real life using school taught skills helps children to understand WHY they are learning. We often have a chat at the end of the day about the new things we have learnt and what we know now that we didn’t before. – Arthur Wears

Keep an open mind

We always try to find places to visit that will also provide plenty of educational stimulation. But that doesn’t just mean museums and art galleries etc. You can go somewhere and start up a conversation and ask your children questions to get them thinking outside of the box. We recently went to this really amazing sculpture park and as we went around I was asking my five year old what he thought they were and it was so interesting to hear his interpretations. So much around us is educational it’s just about delving a little deeper. – Emma Reed

As parents, there’s a lot we can do to keep learning fun and alive over the school holidays and actually it’s easier than you think to weave it into their summer holiday activities. To help with that, I have stationery set and pencil case to giveaway to one lucky winner full of all the items your children would need to need to help keep learning alive over the summer holidays!

 

Cover picture credit: Kids photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com

 

 

 

 

15 comments

  1. Visiting new places and buildings to learn about there history is a great fun way of learning with kids

  2. I don’t have children, but when I look after my niece and nephew I love to take them to places where they can learn, like museums and walking to learn about nature. They love it!

  3. I don’t have children so educating them is not on my agenda. I have a niece and nephew and I like to try and explore something new for them when I see them

  4. We love to visit museums and always try to find a new one to visit, we collect things on our trips to the country park to make collages with too. I also rotate their books each week so they get to read something new and don’t get bored

  5. We get out and about as much as possible during the holidays. I always try to encourage my son to try new things and to include him when we’re planning a day out. Some of the best times we’ve had have been on simple walks/trips to the park/visiting grandparents. It’s not always necessary to spend money to have fun.

  6. My son practises work books most days depending on what we are doing and we go out to London to visit museums etc and different places so learning from that too 🙂

  7. Some really good tips here. I will encourage mine to keep learning by doing learning in short and often blocks.

  8. Having 3 boys we try to learn through experiences, so we try to go out and learn all about things in a outside environment. Thanks for the chance as my middle son would love this pencil case

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