Making your children do 'school work' at home in the summer holidays.....

In between all the day trips, park visits and picnics of the summer holidays, do your small ones do any school work?

Mine do.

I don’t mean get them kitted out in school uniforms, park them at the kitchen table and not let them move until it’s break time, toilet time, or the scheduled lunch break.

They’re off for a whole six weeks, after all. They need a bit of mental stimulation as well, otherwise come September, the grey matter might have dusted over with cobwebs and they’ll have forgotten to hold a pen properly. Well, maybe.

Here’s some ideas to keep them occupied and not too much of a stranger to actual work when the holidays roll to an end:

 

- Read bedtime stories. I read a page to my 5 year old, he reads the next one, then me, and so on.

 

- Bake a cake. They have the scales and have to read the ingredients and weigh out the correct measurements, eg 4oz of flour gets tipped in by them.

 

- Get them to write a shopping list for when you’re next in Asda, Tesco, Morrisons or wherever.

Then they can read stuff off to you and find it.

 

- Make a shop at home. Use old cereal packets, tins of beans, sweets etc. Use a toy till to keep the money in (or a tupperware box if you haven’t got a till!)

Then go buy something from their shop and they have to work out how much change they owe you.

 

- Science type silliness for small ones. Get a big bowl of water and several different objects (rubber duck, a pebble, piece of wood etc.)

They’ll have great fun seeing what sinks and what floats, and in guessing which object will do what!

 

- Static electricity – what happens if you rub a balloon against your hair then slowly move it away?!

- If you’re going on your holidays, get them to practise their handwriting by writing a postcard back home to the grandparents, or their friends.

See if you can get home before the postcard does!

 

Geography – pick up a children’s atlas cheaply from Ebay, or Amazon. Failing that, Google maps are great for a bit of world travelling from your own home!

Find your own country, see what countries are bordering yours. Do you have to cross any seas to get to any other countries? If so, which one?

Pick a random country. What’s the capital city called? Does it have any famous landmarks? Go zoom in on it if you’re on Google map, do a little street view tour as if you’re really there!

(My eight year old is geography obsessed, he loves anything like this!)

Before you know it, it’ll be September again…….

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