We’re heading towards the Christmas season, which means lots of fun and festivities – and a lot to look forward to for the kids, including the school holidays!   However, it can also be tricky to keep the learning momentum going when there’s so much else going on so it’s down to you, the parents to keep their young minds engaged. After all, no one wants to do extra homework – but when learning is hidden within Christmas preparations and family activities, it just seems part of the fun!   We’ve put together some top tips to make sure Christmas doesn’t mean the learning has to stop…  
  • Why don’t you suggest your children write a letter to Santa? This encourages their creativity (and also their research skills while they search through catalogues to source the gifts they may like) and funnily enough, can motivate even the most unenthusiastic child!
  • Encourage children to get involved with all aspects of the gift wrapping! They can practice their handwriting with beautifully written labels, while dividing up a sheet of wrapping paper into percentages. Ask them plenty of questions – such as ‘what is 25% of this paper’ or ‘if I take away 1/3 of this paper, what percentage do we have left’?
  • Have a Christmas quiz night! It’s a great way of encouraging their general knowledge skills, or you could make it particularly maths or English focused!
  • Cook up some Christmas treats! After all, almost any cooking activity uses maths skills. Weighing, measuring and timing is all part of the learning fun – plus who doesn’t love some festive cakes or biscuits?
  • For younger children, why not encourage your child to carefully look at the numbers on their Advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas? Nearer the time, they can even calculate how many hours or seconds are left until the big day.
  Even though it is such a busy time, Christmas can still provide many opportunities for children to practice the skills they have been learning at school and through their Exemplar Education studies – it’s all about making it fun and engaging!   If you haven’t yet started your Exemplar Education journey, our expert Course Advisers are specifically trained to be able to demonstrate and fully explain the benefits of our maths and English programmes to you and your family, so you can see for yourself how they work and how your children would benefit from them. Why not get started over the Christmas period?   Finally, if you’re still looking for more inspiration over the Christmas holidays, check out this fantastic blog with more STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and maths) activities to keep them entertained – there’s even one for every day of Advent!