During the summer, the temptation is great for children to spend hours watching television or playing video games, but these activities quickly lead to bored minds and sluggish bodies. However, with a little ingenuity and planning, summer can be an opportunity to stretch the mind, explore new hobbies and build on skills learned during the school year. Here are some great tips for reinforcing Thinking Organized strategies while having fun:

1. Grow your favorite vegetables.
What better way to learn the basics of science and how things grow than to plant your own garden? You can start with seeds or small plants. Talk about what plants need to be hardy: air, water, sunlight and nutrients. Take out books from the library about the soil in your area, photosynthesis and nutrition.

2. Get theatrical.
Children of all ages can have fun making their own puppet theater. Puppets can be made by cutting off the finger-ends of old gloves, coloring on old socks, decorating paper lunch bags or gluing onto popsicle sticks. Yarn, felt, scraps of old t-shirts or material and sequins all add drama to homemade puppets.  Encourage your children to create a story that the puppets can act out.

3. Start a store. Children love to label things and be in charge of their domain.  All you’ll need is some stickers or index cards for price tags, a good collection of coins for change, and a notebook for a ledger or a pretend cash register for the ch-ching! The products can be a collection of toys from their room, books or food containers (empty cereal boxes and canned goods work well for this). As long as the students make the change, they’ll be learning.

4. Become an investment guru. Older children will love learning about the stock market. A good way to get started is to investigate publicly held companies that teens are familiar with, such as Apple, Hollister or Nike. Hold a fantasy stock market contest in your family and see whose investment comes out on top. 

5. Visit a different country every week. Use a globe or atlas and ask your children about different places they would like to visit. Next, hit the library for a collection of age appropriate books about the new country. You’ll want to learn a basic assortment of vocabulary (how to say “hello” and “thank you”) to use throughout the week. Learn as much as you can about the country, and then at the end of the week, make a meal with unique foods from the region.

Of course, there are many online games that can be played to keep up academic skills (such as sporcle.com or luminosity.com) and the library is an invaluable, free resource for every student. We’d love to hear your ideas for educational boredom-busters.