In the words of Alice Cooper:
School’s out for summer,
School’s out forever.
I’m bored to pieces.
Before you hear that chorus of “Mom, what should I do? I don’t have anything to do. Tell my brother/sister to stop hitting me!” or you just surrender to letting the kids go on their iPads for eight hours, here are a few fun activities that in addition to keeping your kids occupied, will give them some great executive function practice (Ssshhhh! Don’t tell them this!) Note: these activities are designed for you or another adult to do with your child, in order to keep the task structured. Over time, your child may learn to structure these activities on their own.
Planning an outing – this could be anything from a trip to the ice cream shop, to a day at the beach, to a weekend at a hotel. Starting from the end goal, determine what steps are needed to get there (for example, going to the ice cream shop requires money and transportation; you need to know when you are going, how to get there, who is going and extending invitations to those who are not part of the planning, and what kind of ice cream you would like to get). Writing the steps is great practice for planning school projects and homework! More complex outings will require more planning; perhaps divide this up if you have more than one child involved. Executive functions utilized: planning, organization, time management, working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, goal directed persistence, flexibility.
Cooking/Baking – Following a recipe is a great way to exercise the executive functions. And bonus! Math skills! The steps are already determined, but gathering ingredients and utensils, working with a timer (if necessary), deciding how much to make (doubling or halving definitely uses math), what size serving dish or bowls are needed – all of these can help your child use their executive function muscles. And think about the self esteem boost that comes from completing something delicious! Executive functions utilized: planning, organization, time management, working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, goal directed persistence, flexibility.
Crafts – there are so many different crafts, I couldn’t begin to list them all here. Crafting involves having a vision of what you would like the end result to be, and then determining the steps and materials that are needed to get there. So for example, if your child wanted to create a painting (assuming they have paint in the house), they would first have to decide what they would like their painting to look like. Planning backwards (and again, writing the tasks down), the steps would include putting on a smock, finding paper, paints, brushes and water, spreading newspaper on the table for spills, perhaps drawing the picture first, painting, and then cleaning up. After that, they can gather the materials (discussing these first is also good planning practice) and follow the steps to create their own Mona Lisa! Executive functions utilized: planning, organization, time management, working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, goal directed persistence, flexibility.
These are just a few examples of how your child can continue their executive function development over the summer. So next time your child is “bored to pieces,” pull out that recipe book or paintbrush, and give those executive functions some exercise!
Storage Cubes with Windows and Hooks
