When the kids are on holiday, they love taking a break from their schoolwork.
But instead of letting them loose on the games console for an hour, why not do something creative with them? It’ll help them use their imagination and pick up some new skills – and you’ll have some fun together. Here are a few ideas to help you get started…
Get snapping
Photography is a great hobby for kids. It helps them look at the world in a whole new way, and teaches them to think before they act.
Most mobile phones have good quality cameras that are easy to use. Just point and click, and the tech does all the hard work to produce nice looking shots. But that’s too easy. Instead, give the kids a real camera to get to grips with, and they’ll learn lots of new skill almost without realising it. In no time at all, they’ll be showing you how to compose shots, and having a go at you when you needlessly crop a subject with your smartphone camera.\
Use some tech to show them how it’s done
Online activities
There are some great apps and websites designed to help your kid get creative in lots of different ways. These can be tricky to show on a smartphone, but tablets are ideal for teaching and sharing ideas. Sit down with your kids, fire up the tablet, and swipe to the content you want to take them through. Need some inspiration to get started? What about getting some help from The Scouts?
The organisation is known for its love of the great outdoors, but they’ve also managed to pull together some inspired children’s activities for the home. Head to #GoodForYou page on the Scouts webpage and you’ll find loads of stay-at-home activities to help kids learn new skills. You’ll find everything from creative drawing to science experiments in a tea-cup.
Creative writing
Creative writing is another hobby you might want to explore with your kids. Tablets aren’t great for writing stories on though, so you might want to check out a 2-in-1 laptop. These versatile devices are laptops with detachable keyboards. Your kids can use the keyboard for writing stories and doing homework on, then switch to tablet mode for fun stuff like games and movies.
Get musical
Or what about teaching your kid how to play a musical instrument? When they've chosen the keyboard, guitar or drumkit of their dreams, let them spend some time on YouTube. Trust us – if there’s an instrument to learn, there’s a decent YouTube tutorial for it.
Give them green-fingers
If you’ve got a garden, give your kids their own little plot to tend. You can then teach them how to sow seeds, how to water them regularly, and how to be very patient. There are other ways to get creative in the garden, like building insect hotels and creating leaf animals.
If you haven’t got a garden, you can always try growing seeds on a window-box. Head to the ‘Gardening for Kids’ section on the CBeebies website for loads of great tips on getting started.
