Encourage your child to produce a holiday journal

If you would like your child to do something educational throughout the summer holiday break but without being too formal then encourage them to keep a holiday journal. Creating a holiday diary or journal is a wonderful activity that will not only keep your child busy, be educational but it will preserve their memories for a lifetime. It doesn't need to be fancy or complicated. In fact, the simpler the better. The only thing you really need is a large spiral bound sketch pad (or for younger children, a scrap book), a glue stick and some crayons or felt tips.

You can either focus the holiday journal on your child's holiday or keep it running throughout the holidays to record all their day trips, activities etc. Often at the end of the long break children can't remember what they did in the first couple of weeks and a holiday journal is an ideal way of recording how many different things they have actual done overall. Each day of the trip or for each event get your child to draw a picture of what they did and write about it. They can also paste in souvenirs such as leaflets, ticket stubs, leisure park maps and postcards or photographs.

If your child isn't old enough to write then you can help by writing captions. Encourage older children to be more involved by writing about "What I liked best today" or recording how much money they spent on each day etc. Let your child manage their "project" - some days they might only write a couple of lines, if any and on others they might spend ages doing some creative artwork. Above all it should be fun and enjoyable and hopefully something they will be proud of.