Brain Exercises On Summer Break

More ideas to exercise the brain during summer break, from school, and combat boredom.

Explore your roots.  Learn about your family through stories. Delving into family history is a great way to help kids understand how they fit to the past. Help your child research family roots by interviewing family members.  Create a list of ancestors from the memories of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.  For each ancestor, give birth, marriage occupation, and death data.  Write down stories about these people from the past.  Create a book that can be enjoyed by your child’s children in the future.

What is the Melting Pot?   Why is America called a melting pot?  Collect takeout menus from various restaurants in your area.  Pizza is a product of Italy, gyros are from Greece, tacos from Mexico, and hummus from the Middle East.  Explore America’s  diverse culture. To better understand the diversity, research how these cultures are different from each other and us. Visit local restaurants or cook up your own versions of global dishes, then plot the origins of your meals on a world map. Try dishes with veggies and spices you’d never find in your pantry.  Keep a journal of your findings.

Create a fun, book report.  This activity is a fun way for your child to practice reading comprehension skills.  Have your child select a favorite book.  Some stories will take place in a single scene, while others might involve more than one. Ask your child to identify where the story takes place?  Once your child has identified the scenes within the story, decide what particular part of the story was the most interesting. Ask your child to create this scene using the important elements of that scene to the story?  Use boxes and art supplies, to make a diorama of the story. Place the characters involved in the box, and use it to retell the story!

Become an investment wizard.  Summer is the perfect time for older children to learn about the stock market.  A good way to get started is to investigate publicly held companies they are familiar with, such as Apple Computer, eBay, Nike or Tootsie Roll. Choose a stock and chart it daily, to see how it fluctuates.  At the end of the summer… are their gains?  Choose well,  Mom and Dad might pay out the profits!

Start any kind of a collection, rocks, shells, coins, stamps, baseball cards. The organization and categorization (and storage) require lot’s of skill. Research your collection for value and attributes.  Chart and catalog the items in your collection.

Go on a treasure hunt to a museum.  Take a virtual or real tour.  Explore the museum’s Web site, or go to a museum. Don’t try to cover a whole museum in one day. Start in the gift shop and let your child pick out some postcards of paintings or objects on display. Turn your museum trip into a treasure hunt by trying to find those paintings or objects in the museum. Look for 5 facts about the item.