Summer is a cataclysmic change for many families. Kids go from being busy with school and homework and activities to suddenly having a bunch of free time and complaining they are bored. In the meantime, parents still need to go to work and have more tasks than ever as the outside needs cared for as much as the inside.
So how can you keep your kids learning, active and engaged once they are out of school?
This is going to depend on the age of your kids first and foremost. But here are some great ideas.
1. Chores – Once upon a time kids did chores. Put in a garden and ask them to weed and water it every day. Same with the flower beds. Kids any age can do this. The little kids will think it is fun in most cases.
2. Camps – There are two kinds of camps which are great for keeping kids active in the summer. One is sports camps where kids get introduced to a sport or sharpen their skill in a sport.
3. The second type of camp is more academic. More and more places run computer camps, robotics camps, coding camps, etc. These can teach your kids valuable skills that the schools more traditional curriculum is most likely not covering enough.
4. Want to save money on those camps? You can ditch the group activity and buy online courses and get your kids to learn via the computer. Udemy is one such place where for as little as $10 you can get an online course that will teach programming, game design or many other types of skills.
5. Summer sports – some sports are played in the summer but not run by the school system. One example is tennis, which has USTA events year-round where you do tournaments on the weekends and find people to practice with during the week. If your child cares about being good, they need to practice regularly in the sport.
6. Summer Jobs – Is your child 16 or older? Get them out to find a summer job. Kids need some exposure to working because it helps with being more responsible as well as having more appreciation for work and workers later on when they are older. Many seasonal businesses will be looking for young people to work in the summer.
7. Summer projects – decide on a project your family is going to do this summer and work on it regularly, making sure the kids have a lot of the responsibility. Maybe it is cleaning the basement, or it might be building a shed or a picnic table.
These are just some ideas for you to keep those kids engaged, busy and learning throughout the summer months.
