Holiday Plan: What Can I Do Mum?

What Can I Do Mum?

School Holidays in Singapore are a great relief for many parents as well as for many of the children.  The one to two months-long holidays could provide you some good quality bonding time with your child and also allow you and your children to escape temporary from the hustle and routine school days.

However, as many of the parents will soon experienced shortly after a few days into the holidays, the children will become restless and keep on pestering you on the same question:  “Ma, what can I do now?”.   It could get too frustrating and unproductive to think of adhoc plans to satisfy the unending appetite of the children.   What could be manageable is to come up with a small project that you and your child will be engaged in.

This small project is very simple and by getting your child involved in the process, it enhanced the joy of carrying out the plan later on.

Small Project

To begin with, gather and prepare some ideas of what you would like to do with your children during this holiday.  Or think of some of the activities that your child would most enjoy.  It could be educational but should have some fun elements blending in as well.

Using a blank paper, list down all the things that you think your child would like to do such as:

Gather your child and then ask them what they would like to do (before showing them your list).   You use your list only to guide them to certain suggestions and it is best to let them decide on a few agenda on their own.    Those that were suggested by them will be more the one that they more likely to stick to it and like it.

Once you have gather enough listings, it is time to prioritize them.   Put them in the order of preferences.  Let your child decide which activities they would like to do first.   Next schedule them according to your free time slot and your child free time slot (they may need to attend some school activities during the holidays).   Try to space them out so that they are not just packed into one single week of activities but are well distributed throughout the holidays.

Filling In the Gaps

You will need to come up with some small time-filling activities to fill the gaps in between those bigger activities so as not to have to much of “What Can I do next, mum” type of questions.   List down those activities that your child have to do and those activities that your child like to do.

List down “Have to do activities” such as holiday homework, holiday assignments and revisions.   It is best to again again spread out these activities throughout the days (e.g 1-2 hours in the morning) and not a whole day activity.  

Next fill the rest of the time with “Fun to do/learn activities”. These activities could be fun to do or are things that your child could do on their own such as:

Once you have the “Big activities” and “Filling The Gaps” activities, you could list out a schedule on a big piece of paper or on your diary or even on a cardboard.     Put down on your calendar the “big activities” so that your child knows when they are going to do what in the coming future.

On a small piece of paper, list down the daily activities that your child could do.  These are the “Filling the Gaps” activities.   This piece of paper could be revise or rewritten daily to suit the day’s schedule.  Teach and ask your child to refer to this list of activities to fill their time.   Ask them to put a “Tick” to each activities that they have done.  This will make them to look out for things they could do on their own without asking “Mum, what can I do?” and also crossing them out after finishing them let them feel sense of achievement for that day.

By planning with your child all these activities, you will minimise the chance of them asking you what to do next and also make the holiday more organised and more productive.   Your children will enjoy and also learn something during their holiday.  

For some of the great suggestions of “Big Activities”, you could visit SingaporePlayground.blogspot.com to find some of the Family activities that you and your child could spend quality time on.  Have fun and enjoy your school holidays.