New skills for kids to master in the holidays

[twoastars]

Now DDs are of the age to be interested enough to commit to learning and mastering new skills i'm trying to come up with a few new things to solve the I'M BORED problem over the holidays that will be useful and time well spent.

Are there any ideas you have of things your DC have spent time practicing and working towards and can realistically master or get pretty good at by the end of the summer (age 7-10)?

They have suggested:

Hair tutorials - French plait & bun
Baking a cake/cookies independently
Drawing characters & faces
Learning to play a couple of songs on the keyboard

Outdoor skills (when it's not raining or under a canopy) fire lighting- and toasted marshmallows/sausages, whittling, lashing, basket weaving - we used paper.

If you have an ice skating rink nearby, you get discounts going in summer and you can be decent when it comes to Christmas. If the rink has a shop you can buy a pair of skates about the same price as roller skates. They are way more comfortable than the hired skates.

Mine are doing typing and coding.

Learn some basic sign language... ☺ ☺

Oh, that's a great suggestion, Elderflower14.

I'm trying to get dh to teach ds how to read music. I can't teach him as I can't read music either!

A sailing club? Residential if possible.

Learn to read music and play the recorder, perhaps be able to play a carol.

Grow some sprouting salad or bean sprouts.

Who can grow the tallest sunflower? Maybe start next Easter hols!

Make yoghurt, you don't need fancy equipment for this, just clean bowls and somewhere warm like an airing cupboard.

Potato printing, Christmas wrapping paper of course!

Another vote for learning sign language as suggested by @Elderflower14

Duolingo? The 5yo and I are taking up German. She can already order milk and wine, two days in.

A simple sewing project for beginners is making lavender bags, can be done all by hand or with a sewing machine (especially good for learning how to do neat machine corners).
It shouldn't cost too much as you can use recycled fabric, and you might be able to find free lavender flowers to dry.
Decorated with simple embroidery or ribbons they would make a nice present from a child.

We are on week 3 of the holidays. 8 year old ds has learnt to tie shoelaces and is teaching himself morse code. He's also currently obsessed with the periodic table having found a book in a second hand book shop.

Dd (5) and I are using duolingo to learn my grandfather's mother tongue. She is far better than me.

They're also helping me make a herb garden and learning the common and latin names of all the herbs.

One of my girls said they were bored one holiday ( I'm talking years ago, mind!) I gave her a duster and some polish, she soon found something to do!

As you've got three, you could do some outdoor games like French elastics, skipping rope (double Dutch if they get good), leap frog, proper hopscotch games.
Me and my sister also perfected some very complicated clapping rhymes over long summers if they'd be interested.

We did morse code last summer as a family project. Surprisingly fun and we still tap messages to each other secretly in public.

This summer we’re enlarging our v small pond, making it more nature friendly and hopefully installing some cobbled-together water feature for aeration.

Try an environmental theme?

Hanging out laundry properly.
Grow your own lettuce/radish/ herbs?
Make compost? Wormery?
Id bugs? Plants? Trees?

This is great.

Girl Guide or Boy Scout badge requirements might give you some inspiration.

Pawprint Challenge Badges are cool. There are loads of free resources on their website too.

https://pawprintfamily.com/product-category/badges/?filter_product-type=challenge-badges&filter_badge-type=patches&orderby=date

https://monkeyandmouse.co.uk/kids-challenge-badge-list/

This might be useful to somebody.

Other ideas are: -

Learn to play darts
Research family tree
Make friendship bracelets
Make birdfeeders
Make a bug hotel
Learn to identify types of birds and trees

Touch typing as already suggested. BBC has a good set of lessons on this.

Can they properly tell the time? It's on the Y4 curriculum but I'd guess well over 50% of Y6s can't tell the time to the nearest minute on an analogue clock.

Cartwheels and handstands
How to do plaits

More a fun activity than a learning project, but making sushi could be fun, use vegetables or tinned tuna, you'll need a rolling mat and some seaweed sheets too. It would be something different for lunch, especially if you got some pickled ginger or wasabi paste.
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