Christmas is of course a magical time for children, but it’s also a great opportunity to help your child with their reading, writing and reasoning without them even knowing! With that in mind, here are 12 fun ideas to help your child with essential skills during the festive period!
Day 1.
Get your children to write those Christmas lists, or if they’ve done that already, encourage them to write Christmas cards and shopping lists. One of the things that we’ve noticed is that following lockdown when learning was all online and computer based, children’s handwriting skills suffered.
Day 2.
Gift planning. Sit down with your child and plan some ideas of what to buy for friends and family. Try and discuss why someone might like a particular gift. This helps with reasoning and whilst for younger children it could be as simple as asking, Do you think Grandad would like a pair of running shoes and if so why?, but for older children could be more sophisticated such as discussing whether we should give gifts.
Day 3.
Go Christmas shopping and include a visit to the bookshop. Spend some time finding books that your child likes for those stocking fillers and gifts. If you have a reluctant reader, what about comics just to get them engaged? It also might be worth purchasing an advent or Christmas book now which you can read together before the big day.
Day 4.
Plan some Christmas cooking and put together a shopping list. Get your child reading recipe books and writing down lists of ingredients.
Day 5.
Get cooking! Hopefully you have the ingredients now, so ask your child to do the weighing and measuring. If you’re making lots of cookies what about dividing them into batches to give as gifts encouraging your child to count and divide.
Day 6.
Go ice skating! Christmas and the autumn term can be full on and sometimes you just have to find time to relax and let off steam. We all know exercise is good for that and what a fun way to get into the spirit of Christmas while burning off excess energy!
Day 7.
Go carol singing. Done with a friendly group this can be a great boost to confidence and you can encourage your child to read the words of the hymns.
Day 8.
Check out your local National Trust or historic houses. These often have great Christmas displays and are an immersive way to learn about history.
Day 9.
Encourage your child to do some of the gift wrapping. This is all about improving dexterity and encouraging them to write a few gift tags too.
Day 10.
Time for some times table work. Try some fun examples, like, If we have eight guests on Christmas day and they all get three gifts, how many gifts will there be under the tree? Or, How many Brussel sprouts do we need if everyone is going to get five each?
Day 11.
Go for a pre-Christmas walk and count the Christmas trees you see on the way. If you live in an area where there are lots of Christmas lights this can be fun way to see some of the best displays and have a competition about which are the best and why.
Day 12.
The countdown to Christmas Day has really begun so can you and your child work out how many hours or minutes left until the big day. Or what about using one of the Track Santa apps where you can see how many miles Santa has travelled and how many presents he has delivered. This can be a great way to learn about geography too especially if you can talk a little bit about the countries Santa has visited!
We hope you and your family enjoy some of these festive activities and have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year! And don’t forget, if your child is struggling with schoolwork or could do with a bit of a confidence boost, the new year is a great time to sign up to one of our Magikats workshops, so why not get in touch for more information or to find your local group.
