Summer holidays: improving activities?

[Bromley4ever]

Are you supposed to do improving activities in the summer holidays? I'm lucky enough to have this summer at home with kids, 9 and 12, for the first time ever, but we've mostly been doing movies, pottering about etc and a couple of days away. No one has gone near a piece of paper and the only museum we went to was for a non-serious exhibition. What do others do? Will my children go back to school relaxed or will they have slipped back 3 years?

You do whatever you think works for you and your family.

I've always done some level of maths / writing with my DD over the summer, but only because she struggles so it is a good time to close the gap.

Thanks for the perspective! Older one could do with a rest after a difficult year 7 and change of schools and he was ahead anyway, but younger one could probably do with a bit of practice especially with writing. So I may try and squeeze some of that in.

We always used to do a holiday diary, but other ideas could be: sending a postcard to a relative; writing shopping lists; or writing a short story.
We also always did the library reading challenge whilst in primary.

We do almost daily maths and writing with our 9 year old before he gets his screen time. But we are not hot housing, he is quite far behind and has ASD, so needs much longer to retain information and learn. So this is a good opportunity to catch up a bit.
Activity wise we have been camping and doing swimming lessons so far, there has also been quite a bit of hanging around.

My DD10 & DS9 read happily every night but DS7 doesn't really enjoy it & slips backwards without regular practise so every couple of days we've been listening to him read & been doing some crosswords, wordsearches & maths puzzles.

Otherwise we've kept up with regular music practise, played board games, followed recipes when baking etc

I like to send them back to school rested, happy & healthy so lots of beach days, bike rides, swimming & as much fruit & veg as possible!