It’s the end of year! Here are 10 fun ideas from the Nal’ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign that incorporate reading and writing to keep your children busy and entertained during the school holidays.
1. Keep a holiday journal. Use an exercise book or staple sheets of paper together to create a journal in which your children can draw and write about their holiday activities, thoughts, ideas and feelings. Encourage them to do this each day, either with you or on their own.
2. Going on a journey? Create a travel map for your children. Draw a simple map and put the towns or landmarks on it. Your children can use the map to keep track of where you are in your journey, without having to ask ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ all the time and to add new places of interest to them! Or www.nalibali.mobi to download audio stories for your children to listen to from your cellphone.
3. Join a library holiday programme with your children. Borrow a book by an author that none of you has ever read or more books by your favourite authors.
4. Create personalised gifts for friends or family members. Think about how you would describe a friend or family member and then look through magazines and newspapers to find words that describe them. Arrange and paste these onto a sheet of paper together with a photograph or drawing of the person.
5. Create holiday memory boxes using old shoeboxes. Let your children cover and decorate their boxes, and write their names on them. When their boxes are ready, they can collect anything that represents a holiday memory for them: for example, train tickets, photographs, drawings, letters and cards from friends, the names and authors of books they have read.
6. Make up silly stories. Take turns to pull out of a hat, a collection of words you’ve all written on pieces of paper (eg: blue, fox, umbrella, bag, moon, girl, flew, jumped, shone, sang, coat, grabbed.). Use them to help you create and tell a silly story, either all together, or separately.
7. Cook together. Find a recipe with your children for something interesting that you haven’t eaten before. Read the recipe and make the food together – then enjoy eating it!
8. Remember your favourite childhood stories. Tell them or find them in books to read to your children.
9. Picture it. With your children, cut out interesting pictures from newspapers or magazines. Each person thinks and writes what they like about a picture. Then share what you’ve all written.
10. Make an alphabet book. Do this with your younger children or invite your older children to make one for a younger sibling or baby you know. Write each letter on a separate sheet of paper and then draw or find pictures of familiar things for each letter: for example, an Aloe or aardvark for ‘A’.
For more reading and writing tips, as well as a range of children’s stories available in English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi and Sesotho, visit www.nalibali.org or www.nalibali.mobi
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Holiday activities that’ll grow your children’s potential
It’s the end of year! Here are 10 fun ideas from the Nal’ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign that incorporate reading and writing to keep your children busy and entertained during the school holidays.
1. Keep a holiday journal. Use an exercise book or staple sheets of paper together to create a journal in which your children can draw and write about their holiday activities, thoughts, ideas and feelings. Encourage them to do this each day, either with you or on their own.
2. Going on a journey? Create a travel map for your children. Draw a simple map and put the towns or landmarks on it. Your children can use the map to keep track of where you are in your journey, without having to ask ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ all the time and to add new places of interest to them! Or www.nalibali.mobi to download audio stories for your children to listen to from your cellphone.
3. Join a library holiday programme with your children. Borrow a book by an author that none of you has ever read or more books by your favourite authors.
4. Create personalised gifts for friends or family members. Think about how you would describe a friend or family member and then look through magazines and newspapers to find words that describe them. Arrange and paste these onto a sheet of paper together with a photograph or drawing of the person.
5. Create holiday memory boxes using old shoeboxes. Let your children cover and decorate their boxes, and write their names on them. When their boxes are ready, they can collect anything that represents a holiday memory for them: for example, train tickets, photographs, drawings, letters and cards from friends, the names and authors of books they have read.
6. Make up silly stories. Take turns to pull out of a hat, a collection of words you’ve all written on pieces of paper (eg: blue, fox, umbrella, bag, moon, girl, flew, jumped, shone, sang, coat, grabbed.). Use them to help you create and tell a silly story, either all together, or separately.
7. Cook together. Find a recipe with your children for something interesting that you haven’t eaten before. Read the recipe and make the food together – then enjoy eating it!
8. Remember your favourite childhood stories. Tell them or find them in books to read to your children.
9. Picture it. With your children, cut out interesting pictures from newspapers or magazines. Each person thinks and writes what they like about a picture. Then share what you’ve all written.
10. Make an alphabet book. Do this with your younger children or invite your older children to make one for a younger sibling or baby you know. Write each letter on a separate sheet of paper and then draw or find pictures of familiar things for each letter: for example, an Aloe or aardvark for ‘A’.
For more reading and writing tips, as well as a range of children’s stories available in English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi and Sesotho, visit www.nalibali.org or www.nalibali.mobi
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