Fun and productive school break activities for kids

Summer has been the break children are looking forward to! This could be the best time for them to get to enjoy recreational activities that is not usually scheduled during school season. And parents for sure would not like them to be idle either.

Here are some ideas:

• Summer camps. Several educational institutions offer sports (swimming, basketball, taekwondo, etc.), arts and crafts, painting lessons, science or technology lessons. This is an opportunity to learn new skills and earn new friends

• Exploring Outdoors. Either an enjoyable family gathering out of town, with swimming or hiking activities, perfect time to catch up and spend quality time with family and friends.

• Community Volunteer.  Try involving them to some outreach activities, cleanup drives or pet shelter visits. They can develop compassion at the same time camaraderie with peers here. 

Also, to balance play and learning, allow your children to relax and unwind too. Let your kids be just kids. Allow them to watch movies and play games. Set some time for the entire family to play board games like Word Factory, Scrabble or Monopoly. You will be able to relax while bonding with each other, doing pep talks in between turns.

 

Playing online games is also an option. In today's digital age, it is important for children to develop digital literacy skills, and playing games could be a good start-up. There are a lot of educational games available on the web for free. Such games can help kids become familiar with technology, improve their computer skills, and learn to navigate app interfaces.

If you have kids in the primary level, you may want to let them role play as a  grocery store cashier. Kids take fancy on role playing cashier roles. Cashier Simulator  is a good game that can teach kids to count money, add, multiply and be familiar with the dilly dally operations of a store. 

They are playing but unconsciously you are teaching them Mathematics. There are also processes that they would learn from here like input methods such as punching in the cash register and the use of a barcode reader, payment options of cash and credit cards (with security pins), even receipt printing. There’s something to learn on each step of the game process.

learning Mathematics while playing

Barcode reader simplifies inputting of data

For a little older child, you may let them try Tap Supermarket. It is a grocery store simulation game where you manage stocking a grocery store, check out customers, and use profits to expand your product line. This game will improve reflexes and coordination since there will be hand-eye coordination in determining out of stocks and re-stocking. You can also learn to strategize as you will have to decide whether to expand your product line to earn more.

The Supermarket to manage.. cashiers, stocking, strategy

your goal... earn the most profit by efficiently managing the supermarket

There are also some educational games offering multiplayer options, which you can play together with the rest of the family. I found one, Kingdoms Wars, a game inspired by Monopoly. There are actually a variety of interest-based educational simulation games in this site to choose from. You can be a coffee shop owner, baker, farmer, city planner or businessman. There’s also STEM games in their collections teaching children about coding, logic and how software is made and tested. Browse their collections to check what fits your child’s age and interest.

With proper monitoring and guidance, you can make your kids school break productive. Let them explore the outdoors, find their interests, and let them play. Playing well-designed educational computer games can be a valuable supplement to your child’s learning. Just stay involved in your child's gaming activities. It provides a balance between fun, learning, and personal growth as they learn some life skills on the process.