Let’s Get Productive During Holidays!
Tisha and Jai sat worried as they read the note from their daughter Arya’s school announcing the dates of the upcoming school vacation during the festive season. Arya beamed with joy thinking about her fast-approaching days of freedom, fun and frolic. Tisha and Jai also knew that the joy on little Arya’s face was going to be short-lived. They knew the inevitable nagging would follow soon. “I am bored”, “Can we go out”, “I want a pet”, “I am hungry” … the list is endless.
A lot of parents share the same concern that Tisha and Jai have – How do we keep children gainfully occupied during the holidays??
With nothing to do, kids tend to get restless, sometimes get into fights or even over eat during holidays. Most parents may not have the same time off as their children, creating a need for added arrangements to keep children safe and busy!
While these are reasonable concerns, kids do need a break from the classroom occasionally. Spending all day in a classroom can be demanding, and there is a limited amount that students can learn at a stretch. Holidays provide young minds with the mental break they need to be engaged when they go back to school.
Vacation time is also synonymous to family time in most homes. Holidays give children the opportunity to spend time together with their families and celebrate. The smell of freshly baked cookies or ripe mangoes or the fun of fireworks brings in nostalgic memories of the time spent at grandma’s house for many adults even today.
Holidays can be a great time to bond with children, teach them new skills that are not taught in school and an excellent opportunity to enhance your child’s cognitive development. This is possible only when parents drive them to fruitful and smart activities.
Here are a few ideas to make the upcoming holidays productive:
Make something new for the house
Motivate your child to learn something new and utilize their time and skills effectively. They can engage in DIY projects like making an item from reused plastic or cardboard, with an incentive to use it as part of the festival decor. These activities improve fine and gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination. These tasks keep children engaged, make them feel important and also boosts creativity. It also relieves stress and makes children feel happy by letting the emotions flow.
Learn about their Culture
Encourage your children to use online tools and quizzes to learn the genesis about the festival and improve your child’s real-world knowledge. Nudge them to understand where is it celebrated and why. Ask them to articulate their understanding in a card made for their grandparents. This exercise will not only help with a wider world view; but also lead to much stronger communication skills!
Design a Quiz or Make Riddles!
Developing reasoning skills is a vital part of a child’s early learning. Kids are always trying to prove that they are smart. Give them fun riddles and puzzles to solve. Ask them to try and make their own puzzles based on the one’s they have enjoyed. Logical thinking skills will improve if they are given a chance to interpret and represent questions and stories as they wish!
Spend Quality time to get rid of ‘Number’ phobia
Encourage children to solve math problems daily through fun puzzles & online games. Gamified learning techniques subtly make children to try more and cross a hurdle, rather than give up or get scared. However, your own participation can make a huge difference. You can make solving math puzzles a daily game after dinner time where you can both solve it together and reward the effort with an extra dessert! Children enjoy the attention from parents and the fact that they can actually beat a parent at a ‘smart game’.
Checkout BrainGymJr for new puzzles in math’s daily!
Reward, Reward, Reward
We tend to link rewards to the final outcome. Children need to be nudged in a positive manner towards the end goal. Make a conscious choice to reward EFFORT, PROGRESS and SUCCESS. If your child contributes to the festive cleaning (even if the same is not perfect), allow some extra screen time. If she managed to complete 20 educational puzzles, give extra allowance for chocolates. If he attempts and gets all Math puzzles right, celebrate with a small gift!
The holidays can be a time utilized for family fun and learning for your children. Planning and choosing a bunch of fun and exciting activities for children can work well in developing their skills and cognitive abilities. This holiday season, make the process of learning and growth a lot of fun!
Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before!
– Franz Kafka
