Life & Work

How to keep children active during the holidays

toddlers

Children play at an amusement park in the city. PHOTO | FILE

The school holidays are here once again and children need to be kept active lest they turn into couch potatoes watching TV or playing video games or God forbid, engaging in vices.

Keeping children active not only promotes their healthy physical growth but also boosts their mental development.

In today’s fast-paced life, parents have little time to spend with their young ones owing to busy work schedules.

Striking a balance between work, children and rest, especially during school holidays can be a challenge especially for working parents but is something that can be achieved.

Below are activities that will help to keep the young ones occupied during the April school holidays:

Joining sports camps

Keep your child entertained and active over the holidays by enrolling them for a children’s camps where they can engage in various sports.

The Oshwal Sports Complex will be having a camp dubbed Impact Sports Camp which includes activities such as yoga, water polo and table tennis this April holidays.

Other activities available include lawn tennis, darts, board games, archery, pottery, badminton and volleyball.

Payments for the camp are classified on daily, weekly and duration (six weeks) basis. Charges start from Sh800 per day, Sh3,500 per week and Sh18,000 for the six weeks.

Alternatively, you could enroll the young ones for children’s yoga at Acacia Studios, located at Viking House in Westlands. For Sh1000, a class, the children could also do Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu which are basically martial arts.

Enrolling in cooking classes

Parents need to be keen on things that fascinate their children in order to nurture talent at a tender age.

If your kids are into cooking and baking, then you can enroll them at a cooking class this instead of forcing them to join others in sporting activities that they may not be interested in.

Cake makers, Black Forest house recently unveiled a cake school along Langata road that is enrolling children aged 10 years and above for baking classes.

The school is offering special classes that run during the school holidays to nurture baking talent in young ones.

Gardening activities

Exploring the neighbourhood not only allows young ones to connect with nature but also opens up their minds to being creative. Gardens can magical, fun and full of surprises.

Just watching plans grow from seeds to flowering plants or vegetables can be quite a lot of fun for children. An what better time for this than during the rains when they don’t have to water the plants?

Apart from the children learning new skills in the garden, they can have fun while boosting their self-confidence tending to plants.

If they take on a compost project, they might want to establish how to use organic waste from the house on their small garden patch.

Other projects could include understanding the process of pollination in plants and getting a grip on the fascinating facts about wiggly creatures such as worms and how they enrich the soil.

After all, kids love being outdoors, digging the soil and getting dirty while watching plants grow.

Visiting an amusement park

Set a weekend aside and take the kids out to an amusement park. The Village Market is home to the city’s largest water park boasting nine water slides, all of different sizes and shapes.

It is open to children from 40 inches and above and a team of life guards are a shout away, to ensure safety while the young ones play.

Alternatively, you could take them to the Lunar Park located next to Railways Sports Club and Uhuru Park.

Take a seat at the food court as you watch the children take part in different games and rides including the Dragon Boat, Banana ride, Merry-go-round and the Bumper cars.

Engaging in house chores

Cleaning windows, washing dishes, vacuum cleaning, mopping and sewing clothes are just some of activities you could engage kids in. You could also ask them to help you organise shelves in the garage or pantry.

Leave them to it after providing clear directions on what needs to happen. But keep a watch so they keep to what you want.

Apart from the house chores that keep the children active during the holidays, they also teach them independence and responsibility.

Brick building

If the weather outside is gloomy, you could set aside an indoor activity that will help keep children away from the TV.

Brick-building is ideal for those rainy and gloomy days just as is playing pool or table tennis in a corner of the room.

Alternatively, you could set up complicated jigsaw puzzles or provide bouncy balls or hula hoops to get them moving.

Before you know it, the holidays will be over and you can breathe a sigh of relief at having kept then busy and having fun.

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