Parents often ask teachers for suggestions of holiday activities that will maintain learning before children return to school. While we neither expect nor want children to spend hours at a desk engaged in school-type lessons, there is plenty that parents can do with their children to keep them curious and motivated to learn. This post includes suggestions teachers can provide to parents.

Some of the best things parents can do to maintain children’s learning are: 

• Encourage their questions and help them find, rather than simply provide, the answers.
• Engage children in experiments to discover what happens. Don’t rely exclusively on books or internet searches.
• Take them on outings and adventures to natural as well as constructed points of interest; such as rainforests, beaches, national parks, marine parks, libraries, museums and art galleries.
• Talk with them about anything and everything including feelings, dreams, goals, desires for the future, fears, how things work and what happens if.
• Read to them, with them and beside them. Show them you value reading for a range of purposes including for information and enjoyment.
• Play games with them—indoor and outdoor games, board games and games you create or construct.
• Most of all, spend time being with them, enjoying their company, getting to know them, in the present moment. Childhood is fleeting and each moment, precious.

Free handouts of holiday activities that maintain school learning 

There are three free handouts of holiday suggestions available for teachers to distribute to parents, or indeed for parents to access for themselves.

Continue reading: Holiday activities maintain school learning – Readilearn