Holiday Fun & Games
Summer is here and it’s time to hit the road but there’s no need to leave learning at home. Rita Krause from Kip McGrath Education Centres shares her top tips on how to keep the kids engaged over the holidays.
School is out for summer and many kids have already jumped headlong into weeks of endless summer fun, but helping them stay engaged in a learning environment will not only expand their appetite for knowledge but it will also pay off in the long run.
Asking kids to sit down and drill their timetables while they are on holidays won’t work and, as Rita explains, you can leave this kind of studying at school.
“Keeping kids engaged in their learning while on holidays needs to be fun and light-hearted,” she explains. “The benefit of this is that when they return to school, there is no need to spend weeks catching up or revising where they left off last year. They will already be in the right headspace, ready to absorb information.”
Incorporating education into everyday activities also helps kids to realise how learning can be used in their lives and help to better engage with the concept of continual education, Rita says.
Some of us will relax at home, embark on a road trip or jump on a plane headed for an exotic destination – whatever your plans, there are many benefits to keeping the kids engaged in their learning during holidays.
Top Tips For Keeping Kids Engaged
Travel Journal – Create a travel journal as a family. Encourage the kids to write about each destination visited and collect brochures that you can read together. Take lots of photos and add them into the journal as well as pictures the children may draw about what they saw that day.
Read Together – Most parents will tend not to read to their kids after children master the skill themselves, but Rita says reading aloud will help extend vocabulary. “Choose a book a level above your child’s ability and it will help them improve,” she says. If you’re on a road trip, an audiobook is a great way to share the experience together. Rita says it’s important to make sure you also chat through the book with children to make sure they understand the themes and story.
Numbers Game – Focus on numeracy by asking the kids to work out how far you have travelled in a day or how long it might take to travel a certain distance when travelling at a particular speed. Older kids can help work out the daily budget for lunch while advent calendars will help the littlies learn how to count.
Play Games – Scrabble, puzzles and cards are all easy to take on the road and a great way to keep the kids thinking and learning while on holidays. Board games are also a great way to get the family together for some quality time and you can pick up some brilliant games at Rainbow Fun in Noosa Junction.
