Brainy Holiday Activities to Try This Winter
The holiday season is here, and with it comes more family time. Instead of just turning to holiday movies (even though they are pretty great too), here are 5 fun holiday activities to try this year! These will help you connect with family members, whether it’s your kids or extended family, AND exercise some brain skills while you’re at it.
Family Jigsaw Puzzle Challenge
Have a family gathering but don’t know how to fill the time? Have a puzzle challenge! Everyone go to a thrift store or bring a different jigsaw puzzle and see how many you can get through during your time together. Or you could break off into teams and have a little healthy family competition (maybe the loser has to do dishes after the big meal!)
Jigsaw puzzles are a great activity for all ages to build executive functioning, processing speed, visual-spatial, and attention skills.
Bake Something Fun
Especially for kids, learning to follow a recipe is a great brainy life skill! If you involve your kids in the kitchen, they will learn math, science, problem-solving, reading, and executive functioning skills in an environment that feels both fun and productive.
Cozy Family Game Night
Everyone get cozy in your favorite pajamas or sweats, turn on some holiday music, and have a family game night! Playing games is a great way to strengthen brain skills in a fun environment, and your kids may not even realize how much they’re learning while you play! Check out these roundups of some of our game night favorites:
- Smart Mom’s Toybox 2022: Games and Toys that Build Brain Skills
- 5 Word Games to Improve Your Child’s Reading and Spelling Skills (+ tips to adjust these for struggling readers and spellers)
- Top Brain-Boosting Family Games (last year’s roundup of some of our favorite games and toys for the whole family)
- Brain-Boosting Road Trip Games (to fill time while traveling this season)
Elf on the Shelf: Mystery Version
You either love or hate the elf on the shelf, but if it’s one of your family’s holiday activities traditions, you can take it a step further by making it a “mystery version” this year. (Or maybe just once a week… we know how hard it can be to come up with new ideas!)
Instead of just hiding your elf, leave clues to make your kids try to figure out where it’s hidden. These could be simple (like having a math fact and they have to find the card with the right answer to get the right next clue) or more complex depending on your level of creativity!
Solving this puzzle can be a great exercise for your kids’ logic skills this holiday season.
Write Holiday Cards
Writing by hand is one of the most powerful ways to practice reading and spelling skills. The act of sending holiday cards is a great way to reflect on your year as a family, practice some long-term memory skills, and get your kids to practice some reading and spelling over the holidays!
Set Your Child Up for a Better Second Half of the School Year
If this first semester was a struggle, you are not alone. Math and reading scores are continuing to decline across the state, and that is largely due to a major gap in learning skills. If you want to get your child poised for better success in the spring, contact us today to learn what steps you can take now to get started!
