Benefits of School Holiday Project

I used to dislike school holiday project. Every time, during the last day of school, the teacher will hand me the activity sheet on what to do with your child at home during the school holiday. My face will go so long that it can touch the floor. Nonetheless, I will still complete it with my child but “drag my feet” to finish it up, just like going to work on Monday. You know that feeling? Believe me and is true!

Looking at the other side of the coin, school holiday project is actually a very good thing not only for the child but for the parents too. As many of you will know when school holiday is here, either you
1. occupy your child with holiday programmes,
2. parked at home and allowing him/her to hover over the gadgets
3. play dates after play dates
4. travel

But you know you can’t get all days occupied with that because
1. holiday programmes cost a bomb!
2. become too addicted and bad for the eyes
3. too tiring to travel out every day
4. requires time and money (holiday too short -> not fun enough, holiday too long -> BROKE!)

School holiday project comes in really useful, meaningful and purposeful as it allows you and your child to do something together to reach a goal. There are several benefits that come with it too.

Creativity
School projects usually all activities that encourage creativity such as art and crafts or building something out of a material requested by the school. It helps your child to learn problem-solving skills and allowing them to explore their own talents and feel greater confidence as they discover their abilities to get something done.

Team Work 
With you involved in the project, you are teaching your child how to complete a task as a team. This helps a child to learn about the concept of working as a team and achieving a common goal. This is really useful during their growing up phase and finally at work.

Time Management
Knowing that a school project has to be done and submitted when school reopens, your child will have to be aware of how he/she is going to manage the time between play, homework (if any) and project. For young children, especially preschoolers, this is the best time to teach with real life examples on how to manage their time to complete a task. It teaches them how to plan and prioritise their “work” and play. For older children, allow them to take the responsibility for their own schedules, remind them if they overdo certain activities and neglect school work or vice versa.

The last school holiday, which just ended, mei mei was given a project to be completed within that holiday week. Her task was to create a puppet according to her favourite fairytale character using recycled materials. Luckily for us, we have loads of fairy tale storybooks at home and loads of recycled materials. Hence it wasn’t tough to choose a character but it was tough to make one! Mei mei chose Tinkerbell for this project as she has been super obsessed with fairies recently. We made plans on how to make the fairy and after some discussion, she gathered all the materials from around the house and started working on it. She couldn’t wait.

She did most of the painting herself while I helped her with sticking the parts together as she watched. Yep, teamwork! She waited patiently for the paint and glue to dry while doing some reading at the side. This project tested her patience too as it requires sticking of yarn to make the hair. It was the toughest and I was glad to see her persevering instead of giving up.
  

The next day, she started decorating her little fairy with mouth, eyes, and clothes. She was really enjoying the process of seeing her little fairy coming out soon.

Finally, the project is done! She was so happy with it and requested for a picture with her cute little Tinkerbell fairy and her favourite book. She couldn’t wait to show to her teachers and classmates. What do you think of her creation?

Now, I really love school projects during school holidays as it increases the bond between the both of us and allows us to teach our child with an objective and increase their love for learning and building up their confidence. Although I do give assignments and projects at home to my own children, projects from school still feel a tad bit different and we appreciate that. We hope you do too!