10+ Ways to Actively Engage Your Child’s Mind this Summer {Writing, Reading & Art}

I’m not sure who’s more excited that school is finished — me or the kids!

Of course summer means long days at home, sometimes bored kids, and a sharp increase in sibling squabbles. But it also means long stretches of outside play, exploring new places, and huge stacks of unread library books.

And while we highly prize the treasure that is relaxation and free time, I also like to plan some things for the kids to do to engage their brain and keep them fresh. The summer slide is a real thing– the average kid will lose about 2 months worth of learning over the summer. Yikes!

I’m not a huge workbook fan, so we try and plan some fun, non-workbook activities each week. Here’s what’s on the docket for June and July:

Writing

It’s my plan to keep my kids’ hand muscles active this summer! No need to break out the lined paper and have them practice their handwriting– instead, I’ll be giving them some fun tools to journal about their days and stay connected to their friends.

Peaceable Kingdom (our favorite cooperative game company!) has a new colorful My Meaningful Life journal that we’ll be using. Aly and Ada are super into writing about themselves: their feelings, thoughts, ideas, to-do lists. Up until now I’ve only came across a couple that were age-appropriate and this one is my favorite yet. The pages are colorful and the writing prompts include things like:

• Give something away and then write about it.
• Think about what you appreciate about others, write it on a butterfly notecard (included), color the butterfly, and give it to your family member or friend!
• Write in the worry jars- what do you worry about? Jot them down, because sometimes just writing them down helps us relax.
• Things I’m good at and things I’m working on.

This journal not only encourages girls to reflect and write, but it also encourages girls to have a growth-mindset and think about how they can influence their world for good.

Also by Peaceable Kingdom is a set of twelve fun rainbow postcards. The girls each plan on writing one per week to friends and family members around the neighborhood and across the country (check your mailboxes!!).

Asante isn’t really into this kind of writing as much, so my plan is to give him a bunch of writing prompts and then offer him the option of either writing his responses out by hand or typing them up in google docs. I find that he writes a lot more when typing, and he loves trying out new fonts! I checked a couple books out of the library to aid me in my search for odd and interesting prompts: Rip the Page and Leap Write In. Some of them are totally strange, but we’ve found enough to last us through the summer.

Reading

The kids all love to read and generally don’t have trouble finding a hefty stack to bring home from the library. But rewarded reading can be fun, so we join a few summer reading programs.

1. The local library. This year’s theme is Build a Better World. Local libraries are fantastic and I’d highly recommend visiting yours!
2. Barnes & Noble. Read 8 books, fill out the sheet, and earn yourself a free book.
3. Half-Price Books. Read 20 minutes a day for June and July, turn in your log each month, and receive a $5 gift card to buy a book.

For great book recommendations, check out Brightly, my absolute #1 place to get book recommendations for kids. My second favorite way to get book recommendations for kids is to ask my local librarian. They are geniuses.

This summer we’re going to be tracking the kids’ reading, at least the older ones. This is NOT about pages read, books read, etc. (who cares?!) but more about them recording the titles of what they read, what they put down because it wasn’t for them, and if they liked it or not (a simple 5 star rating). We think it’ll be fun to look back on and will make it easier to give book recommendations to friends and little siblings.

Art

Art is essential to any summer worth living. 🙂

The kids will certainly end up crafting and cutting and gluing and glittering all summer long without any guidance from me. But, I’d also like to spend some time teaching them a bit about art history while creating art themselves.

We’ll be working with this Paint by Number Museum series by Faber-Castell: van Gogh’s Starry Night, The Eiffel Tower by Monet, and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Not only do these packs include a canvas with the appropriate materials and instructions, but the kids can also watch some online tutorials to see how each particular artist used their tools to create. We’ll then use these painting sets as a jumping off point to explore the artists’ lives and other works of art. I’m so excited.

We’ve already started the van Gogh set and LOVE IT. The kids feel super fancy painting a masterpiece, and the quality is much better than the normal paint-by-number set.

We have a couple art books that we’ll reach into for ideas and further learning too:

1. Usborne’s Art Activity Book, which is loaded with stickers, puzzles, and activities surrounding different types of art.
2. Draw Paint Print like the Great Artists by Marion Deuchars teaches kids about methods that 30 different artists used, then gives kids opportunities to go practice. The diversity of artists is on point and goes beyond the creatives you might typically think of.

I’m personally learning so much from these books!

What are you looking forward to learning with your kids this summer?

Thanks a ton to Peaceable Kingdom & Faber Castell for partnering with us on this post!