Sindu Aven, Academic Head, Kidzee suggests ways to ensure your kids have a fun, productive, growth-oriented and memorable summer
Plan ahead for all the things you would like to do during the summer vacation. Make sure that you involve your child in the planning. Based on your child's interests, find out about local summer-time activities, camps and other events.
Talk to your child's teachers before the vacations begin. They will know how your child learns best and may be able to suggest appropriate activities and events—fairs, festivals or museums—as well as which academic or developmental area you need to focus on during the break.
Design a summer-break timetable with your child. It will help establish a routine and give everybody an idea about what is in store during the month-long break. Make sure you put this up in a place where everybody can see it.
Remember to plan some activities that will help your child brush-up her academic skills. You don't have to run after your child to make her sit with her books. Look up some fun activities on the internet related to the skill you'd like to build. Make learning fun for your child.
Entice and excite your child by taking her shopping for things she plans to do during her vacation. You could buy sports equipment for the sport she wants to learn, books she wants to read, colouring books, paints and so on.
Make sure your child socialises during her vacations. Plan trips or activities with her friends or relatives. Ensure that you include your child in planning these outings.
Engage your child in creative and fun household chores; these could include colouring the plant pots, redecorating a room, planting a garden and creating do-it-yourself decor for the home. Decorate your home with beautiful things stemming from your child's creativity.
Encourage your child to make a summer holiday scrapbook; you could use a Polaroid to document what she did each day. You could even create a blog for her, where she can write an entry each day describing her day's adventures.
Plan a virtual tour for your child. Your child and you could choose from cities around the world and explore the internet for photographs and videos of that place. You could even encourage her to create a scrapbook of the different places she wants to visit.
Encourage your child to learn different languages. There are various online tutorials as well as mobile applications for learning languages. You could even enrol her for language classes. This activity can be clubbed with the 'Places I Want to Visit' scrapbook mentioned earlier.
Encourage your child to choose a skill she might want to learn or receive professional training for over the summer. It could be a sport, a dance form, music, art, culinary, calligraphy, pottery, carving... Give your child the freedom to choose what she wants to learn.
Ensure that your child volunteers with a local NGO. It could be an old age home, an orphanage or an animal shelter. This will help her develop empathy and learn how to give back to the society.
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