Before we start with this article, it is important to enforce the value of the summer break. It’s crucial to allow your child to be a kid and let them relax and enjoy themselves after a long school year. This article is not about enforcing a summer of studying and constant work, they’ll have a lifetime of that anyway.

As the break continues however, it is important to start reintroducing a bit of mental stimulation and routine into their days. This is because having long breaks from a school environment means children can sometimes require extra support to get back into the routine of daily work and it allows your child to prepare for the new school year. Ensuring they maintain some educational activity over the summer can mean they are better equipped for the new year. As with everything in a child’s life, it’s all about moderation and creating the right balance can be really beneficial.

Probably the best way to approach this is to introduce educational activities that are still quite fun and might not even seem like education. Once again, this isn’t about strictly educating but about reintroducing those behaviours slowly so that the new school year is easier. With that being said, here are some ideas to help your child over the summer break.

Take educational trips
The best way to encourage your child to learn is to make the learning invisible. This is why educational trips out are a great idea. Visit a museum, the zoo or take a nature walk; these are all relatively low-cost ways for children to have fun while learning. Usually, there are special exhibits or offers over the summer break so it’s worth checking online to plan some days out.

Board Games
Another classic way to have fun while learning and engaging with some basic skills are board games. Classic games like Scrabble and Monopoly are both fun and educational. They will come in particularly handy on those rainy days by providing hours of mentally stimulating entertainment, as well as a bit of healthy competition.


Reading
Reading is a key habit your child should try to maintain over the summer. It is a great activity to engross your child's attention and help them relax as well as allowing them to become more familiar with words and expand their vocabulary. Try and set some reading goals with your child so they have something to aim for. With movie adaptations of children’s books proving ever popular, why not encourage your child to read the book before and you could discuss afterwards the ways in which the book has been interpreted into film.

Keep a summer diary
A fun way to help your child with writing could be a summer diary. Writing consistently helps a child build vocabulary, develop their thought processes and learn to articulate how they feel. It’s a great way to allow them to express themselves but also let them use skills they’ve picked up in school and continue to develop them in a more independent way. If you wanted a more creative project, you could also help your child make a scrapbook of summer trips and days out.


Get creative
This is an old favourite but one that is particularly beneficial as well as fun. You can encourage your child to use their creativity and knowledge to build projects from common household materials. In doing so they will learn new skills, practise existing ones, and at the end, have something to be proud of. To get some ideas, there are tons of great online craft tutorials available. Try and find something your child is interested in and then let them embrace their creativity.

The summer break should be a time of relaxation and fun for your child but there’s no reason they can’t learn and expand on a few skills over the months. Remember to make the games and tasks as fun and as informal as possible to ensure that your child still engages fully and also spend some time with them during these tasks.