8 Fun Ways to Maintain Studying During the Summer Holidays

School is out for summer but there might still be something for your children to learn. There are a lot of fun things to learn during the summer and lots of great ways to maintain studying during the summer holidays. 

The debate about the impact of summer learning loss and whether or not children should be studying over summer comes around a lot in education. 

While it’s good to take steps to ensure your child is still practising over the summer and maintaining their studying, the debate about how much of an impact summer learning loss actually has on children in their school journey is always ongoing. 

Should children be studying during the summer holidays?

Since the 2020 pandemic children have lost a lot of time in school and have had a couple of summers that were maybe a lot quieter than they’re used to. So you might be wondering if it’s fair to have them studying over the summer? Especially given that a lot of education professionals see that by the October half-term children will have mostly recovered from summer learning loss.

The real struggle for a lot of children after the last few years is re-engaging with their learning. So summer is a great time to get them excited to learn again, and you can do that by working on skills with them that’ll benefit them both in and out of school. Summer is a great time to think of learning differently, and most importantly make it fun for your children. 

With the right summer resources, you can keep your child engaged with things to learn in their free time over summer and beyond.

What to do during the summer holidays?

So, how can we get children engaged with learning again during the summer holidays? 

There are a lot of ways you could try “accidentally” learning with your children. By learning on the road or outdoors, children will be able to have fun at the same time as learning so they don’t need to feel like they’re doing a lesson in a classroom. 

There are a lot of easy wins when it comes to encouraging children to keep on top of their learning over the summer. You could try: 

• Encouraging them to read books, pamphlets or even newspapers

• Teaching your children how to cook

• Getting them into music

• Doing maths games together 

Make learning fun over the summer, and try to do as much of it outdoors if you can. Especially after children may have spent a lot of the last couple of summers indoors! Turning learning into games or fun activities is a fantastic way to get children excited about learning again, so when they go back to school in September they’re all set to catch up on any learning loss.  

The benefits of learning during the summer

Whether you’re concerned about learning loss in subjects like maths or not, there are great benefits to helping children carry on learning over the summer holidays. 

Not only can the skills you teach children over summer be useful in their everyday lives, both in school and beyond, they can actually help them put the academic skills into practice. For example, cooking can help with maths as you’ll find out below! 

Realistically, there’s a chance that your child will have experienced some kind of learning loss over the last couple of years, and that’s completely understandable given the situation with lockdowns and school closures. That doesn’t mean they should be spending their whole summer playing catch up, though – the best way to get them learning is to make it fun, so that children are still enjoying their summer. 

8 fun ways to learn over the summer holidays

Even if your children are really excited to keep learning over the summer, it’s good to give them some direction. That way you can help with their learning, get involved and show that you’re just as engaged with their learning as they are. 

That’s why we’ve put together eight ways to make learning fun over the summer holidays, so your children can keep practising their academic skills and be ready for the new school year. 

1 – Children’s book clubs

Reading is so important for children’s development, so keeping on top of their summer reading is always a good idea. While a lot of children enjoy reading and getting lost in a fantasy land, some children are a little more reluctant and might need a bit more encouragement to get reading over the summer. 

Joining a children’s book club can encourage children to enjoy reading more by making it a fun group activity. Your child’s school might have a book club, and if not you could possibly recommend they start a reading club. During the summer, you could check with your nearest library to see if they’re hosting a book club. 

If you’re struggling to find a local reading club, you could try hosting one for your children and their friends. They can either all read the same book, or you could read to them, or they could all bring their own books and discuss them with each other. So long as they’re encouraged to keep on top of their summer reading, your book club will be a success!

2 – Write your own stories

Writing is just as important as reading to ensure your children are working on their spelling and grammar between school years. Summer creative writing is a really fun way to keep children practising spelling, grammar and their handwriting over the summer. 

Try giving your child different writing prompts over the summer, and see what they can come up with. Or they can really write their own story by keeping a diary – get them to write about what they’ve done over the summer.  

3 – Reading with rewards

Nothing works quite like positive reinforcement when it comes to summer learning. If your child is a bit of a reluctant reader, don’t be afraid to come up with some kind of reward scheme to encourage them to keep reading. 

With our summer reading chart (which is also great fun to colour in), you can give your child a daily and weekly reading goal. You can also set a reward, so when they hit that goal they’ll have something positive to look forward to. 

4 – Spelling games

It’s always important to keep on top of spelling, but it’s not always fun for your child to keep going through spelling tests. So make spelling into a game! You can try games like Junior Scrabble, or you can try fun word puzzles like our animal crossword. 

You could even get a little more creative with spelling by adding pattern recognition with our code breaker game. 

5 – Maths games

A lot of children are reluctant to practise their maths outside of school, so making it fun is one way to ensure children will keep on top of their maths over the summer and avoid maths learning loss. 

Maths doesn’t have to be an indoor game either. It’s summer, so make the most of the summer sun by enjoying some outdoor maths games with your children. 

6 – Get cooking

Cooking is an invaluable skill to teach children about as early as you can. It can also be great fun, after children love playing with toy kitchen sets, so why not get them involved with the real thing?

Cooking and baking can be a good way to get children thinking mathematically as they work with specific measurements. You can also teach them about hygiene and safety as you cook together.  

7 – Plan your holiday together

If you’re going away this year, take the opportunity to teach your children how to effectively make a plan. 

Get them to make lists of things that they need to pack for the holiday, starting with essentials and then non-essentials. This is a really good way to teach them how to prioritise and make good decisions. 

8 – Go to the cinema

When it comes to keeping on top of literacy, your children won’t just learn from books. Films are a great way to learn about narrative and can encourage your children to get creative, either by writing their own stories or writing about the stories they’ve experienced.

Try getting your children to write about their favourite scene from the film you took them to see, or rewrite a scene the way they would do it. You could even ask them to write a review of the film, which is a good way to work on both their writing skills and their analytical skills, which is very useful for essay writing. 

Summer tuition and beyond

Has your child expressed an interest in wanting to do better in school next year? Whether they’re struggling with learning or want to push themselves further, tuition over the summer and even throughout the school year could be the way forward for them.  

Try learning online or in-centre

Tuition doesn’t have to mean going into a classroom or a centre if you don’t live nearby. With online tuition, your child can learn from home. With our adaptive technology, your child’s learning will be constantly assessed so they’re always learning the right skills they need to focus on. Our expert online tutors will also be available to support your child with their learning. 

You could also benefit from our in-centre tuition if you’re able to get to one of our centres. There your child will be supported by a bespoke curriculum that targets exactly the skills they need to learn to perform their best in school. 

Whether you choose an online or in-centre membership, your child will have unlimited access to their learning program, so they can keep practising independent learning over the summer and be ready for going back to school. 

Why not see if tutoring could benefit your child’s learning?