Fun academic based ways to engage children with special learning needs during summer vacation.
With summer break approaching, most parents and caregivers must be wondering how to keep their children occupied, particularly when they are children with special needs. While many activities can be fun and entertaining, such as working on gross and fine motor skills, visual and auditory perception, and so on, with two months of summer break before the new academic year, it is also important to engage children in some academic activities to ensure that they don't forget what they learned in class and are prepared for the new academic year, which will bring new challenges and opportunities to learn and grow. Because children with special needs need consistency and repetition to understand any topic, incorporating these academic principles into their daily lives, particularly during vacations, could be incredibly beneficial. Before we look at academic-based activities, we need to look at the basics of day planning in order to maintain them connected to the school's processes so that the transition after two months is seamless.
SCHEDULE THE DAY/MAKE A TIMETABLE:
It is critical to schedule the day since our children with special needs operate much better with timetables. Make a fun and interesting summer vacation timetable that includes activities that the kids enjoy as well as activities that you, as a parent, would like to work on with the kids. Keeping task boxes will undoubtedly assist in determining which activities have been completed and which still need to be completed. Ensure that the schedule includes the goals and areas of progress that are frequently addressed by teachers during feedback meetings.
ENGAGING IN SOCIAL GROUPS
Many of our children struggle with social skills; during the school year, they work with their peers and a group of students; however, during the summer, the child is often alone, which disrupts the child's routine or habit of being in a social group. As a result, whenever and if possible, encourage the child to interact with other children in play parks, or parents can host a small play party to work on the child's social skills indirectly.
FUN ACADEMIC BASED ACTIVITIES
During the summer vacation, it is critical to ensure that the children converse. Observation-based learning may be a lot of fun during the summer break.
Encourage youngsters to say a few lines about what they see around them to strengthen their thinking skills, as well as their sentence-forming skills. Starting with something the child enjoys and is familiar with will provide him with ample opportunity to succeed in forming sentences, and then gradually moving on to unfamiliar objects and topics will need the child to put in effort in order to communicate. The difficulty levels could be changed based on the objectives and individual skills.
Apart from story books, parents and caregivers might start by having kids read labels of things they like, are familiar with, and will be interested in reading to enhance their reading skills. When it comes to honing a skill, going from familiar to unfamiliar is always the preferable option.
Flashcards, number cards, and a calculator aren't the only tools available for learning math. Encourage kids to participate in baking and cooking activities to help them review important arithmetic concepts such as fractions, measuring, and counting. This would not only keep the child engaged and interested in such concepts, but it would also allow them to be rewarded with some tasty snacks at the end!
Reading labels, using the play way approach, and using the shop role play method are all good ways to recall money concepts. This will assist the child in memorizing numbers and money concepts.
When arranging family vacations, visiting regions with animal life, sea life, and historical sites will allow the child to experience a variety of things. Getting near to nature will allow youngsters to investigate and explore a variety of topics that cannot be taught in a classroom setting.
Art and craft activities can be very helpful in reinforcing and maintaining pre-math and geometric ideas. Color identification, sorting, and color combination are all skills that can be practiced through art.
Origami, for example, is a craft activity that can help revise geometric shapes while also strengthening fine motor skills.
These and other such activities can be incredibly valuable to a child's general development in order to minimize the learning loss that occurs over the summer vacation.
Author: Laura Menezes
Teaching Faculty – DLP, The Aditya Birla Integrated School
Also read,
5 Ways For A Student To Stay Productive During The Summer Break.
How A Special Needs School Can Help Children In Achieving Success Beyond Studies?
.jpg)
.png)
