Christmas Break Activities for Bored Kids & Harried Parents
Christmas break – winter break, Christmas vacation – whatever you call the upcoming school holiday, it’s great…until it isn’t.
Even in 1951, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” included the line, “And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again.”*
If you’re one of them and wondering what your kid can do during this downtime that does not involve you, your car, or your willingness to play Barbie’s friend (a role even sadder than Ken’s), we’ve got some great vacation time ideas for you. And a present, too!
The present is this: our free Let Grow Independence Kit, a “home version” of the Let Grow Experience that we also recommend schools avail themselves of – IMMEDIATELY. The school version is free, too!
Both versions prompt kids of any age to come up with something new they’d like to do on their own but, for one reason or another, just haven’t done it yet. Crucially, both versions come with giant lists of ideas, including seasonal favorites such as:
- Go sledding
- Make a snowman
- Make a snow fort
- Shovel to be nice
- Shovel to make money
- Shovel or else!
- Bundle up and go for a walk
- Go geocaching
- Make cookies
- Make a meal
- Return something to the store
- Look for winter constellations
- Go skating
- Hot out? Sell lemonade
- Cold out? Sell hot chocolate
- Make snowshoes. (No, we don’t know how either.)
TEACHERS: If you assign The Let Grow Experience right before Christmas break (it literally takes five minutes to get underway), your students will return from vacation a little more mature and self-directed. That’s a present for YOU.
Here’s what we recently heard from a third-grade teacher who assigned her students The Let Grow Experience this fall. She told us they’d:
- Walked the dog around the block with a sibling with no adult
- Walked to stores to buy groceries and/or food for the family
- Shopped for baby gifts for a pregnant aunt.
- Learned how to do laundry
- Made a list, shopped for ingredients solo, & baked a cake
- Made breakfast for friends & family
- Walked to sports practice by themselves
- And there were many baking projects (some of which were shared with the class:-)
Christmas break is a great time for kids to try new things.
PARENTS: It’s also a great time for you to let them! After all, we’re staring down a brand-new year. So, download The Independence Kit. And you and your kids might want to take The Let Grow Pledge of Independence as well. Sign it, and we’ll email you one new independence-building idea a week for 10 weeks. Yep, free.
By March, your kids will be ready to hitchhike to Mars.
Christmas Break doesn’t have to break parents. And it can be a true break from schoolwork, screens, and boredom for kids if they can try some new things in the real world, preferably with friends.
So, here’s wishing teachers and parents alike a great holiday – and all sorts of new kid activities involving you doing nothing but opening the door. (And closing it again. Baby, it’s cold outside!)
*By Meredith Wilson, the genius who also wrote The Music Man!
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