Tips to keep your child's mind active this summer

With the summer holidays upon us, we’ve listed our top tips to keep your child's mind active over the break! While a well-deserved rest is important, the summer holidays are a great time to solidify knowledge and prepare for the next academic year.

Keep reading to learn more about activities that aim to boost academic ability while enhancing wellbeing!

1. Read – and read some more!

The summer holidays are a great time to encourage children to read. Regular reading has plenty of advantages, including:

• Improving concentration

• Building language skills

• Developing creativity and imagination

• Supporting cognitive development

• Supporting mental health and wellbeing

Reading over the summer is also excellent preparation for entrance exams. Reading exposes children to new vocabulary, helps them increase their reading speed, and improves their ability to recognise new words. These skills are particularly valuable in verbal reasoning and reading comprehension tests.

2. Stay active

It's easy to slip into the habit of moving less during the holidays, but regular movement is important for children. Exercise helps to keep the body and mind healthy and can have a positive impact on performance at school.

Any movement counts! Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Daily walks to your local park or playground

• Check out sports clubs, yoga lessons and martial arts in your area

• Take a family bike ride

• Organise a dance party at home

• Play outdoor games, such as tag and hide-and-seek

• Take swimming lessons at your local leisure centre

3. Summer lessons

Keep your child's mind active over the holidays with online live lessons. Enjoy interactive classes with Atom's engaging teachers from the comfort of your own home. Best of all, our classes are completely free!

This summer, spark your creativity with our four-day Creative Writing & Comprehension course. Discover how to structure your writing, enrich your sentences with new vocabulary, and add impact with literary devices. Meanwhile, children taking the 11 plus in September will benefit from 11 Plus Trickiest Topics. Learn how to tackle challenging topics in English comprehension, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning.

4. Relax with yoga or mindfulness

Encouraging children to develop relaxation techniques is a great skill to develop over the holidays. Embracing a few minutes of mindfulness each day can help keep some structure during long, lazy days. Meanwhile, older children will benefit from developing a mindfulness toolkit to stay calm during exams.

Adding yoga or meditation into daily routines can help to enhance your child's wellbeing. Digital mindfulness apps such as Headspace and Calm have plenty of beginner sessions suitable for children.

5. Get creative

Encourage your child to engage in activities such as painting or drawing where they can express themselves on canvas or paper. If they have a camera, show them how to experiment with photography – whether it's capturing the beauty of nature or documenting their summer memories. Toys and games like building blocks, LEGO sets and dress-up costumes are also great tools to promote imaginative play.

For the ultimate creative activity this summer, why not enter the Atom Learning Young Author Award? Submit a 500-word creative response to the prompt "If I were in charge for a day..." for the chance to win incredible prizes – including a family trip to Disneyland and free Chromebooks!