Keeping kids busy in the holidays
TES 1996
"So how did you keep the kids busy in the holidays?" I ask a parent teacher.
With four kids doing exams and universities, she should know.
"Actually, we never did" she tells me. "We’ve taught our children
to look after themselves. They would read the papers, discuss the news or go out on their
bicycles. Or they would get out their instruments, form a string quartet and play for
ages".
After that, feeling very deficient, I gave my thanks, and made excuses to leave. Actually,
and I’m still smarting, I thought I’d been doing well with mine, aged four.
While he’s no more musical than his nursery rhyme tapes, he does know about Thomas.
He knows too about Percy, Annie, Clarabel and all the Thomas tank engine team. He’s
got the definitive collection of Thomas models and all that merchandising can put on a toy
shop shelf. He’ll shunt trucks round a hand-painted railway track for hours acting
out Thomas stories. Don’t anyone dare move anything to spoil the ending.
His addiction and our unquestionable success in keeping him ‘busy’, led to the
harder, more expensive stuff - a Brio train set. At age two it was totally ignored, now
it’s a joy to see it laid out by day, and a pain to trip over at night. What’s
more questionable are the arcane stereotypes in ‘Thomas’ - a world where boy
engines pull the girl trucks.
But this year is different, he and the girl next door have become an ‘item’.
Give them cardboard boxes and they turn them into cars. Give them a ‘Blue Peter’
bin, and they turn string and plastic bottles into telephones. Give them dressing-up
clothes, and they’ll make a play and get you to video them. And give them paint, and
they’ll create an art gallery and exchange entrance tickets for invisible money.
You realise that two is less, much less to handle as you admire the art work. "How
much do these cost?", you say. "Well this one’s two pee, and this
one’s two million pounds", they say. This young pair, I think, are a duet to
match any string quartet.
For creative work and the child alone the computer is a must-have toy. Crayola Art
Adventure has colouring in, dot to dots and unlike any painting set, it talks to help
infants along. Others like 3D Movie Maker lets them create cartoon stories, while Creative
Writer lets them make a newspaper, birthday cards, or place-mats to print and even
laminate. The choice is phenomenal so you need only look for big brand names (see below)
to find the best. There’s so much to do, that you can ignore computer games and never
miss them.
"But what if you’re desperate - like you really need to get on with
something?" I asked some Lambeth teachers in London. "Well, give them something
to do that they’re guaranteed to mess up. Then when they do, you can send them to
their room for hours. So if let them do cooking - they’re bound to drop the flour. Or
if you pay them money up-front for tidying up - they’ll always fail to do it".
Hmm. Nice tip, anymore? "Yes, if really want to get the kids out of the way,
get them a Sony PlayStation console. Then they’ll play games forever and not need to
talk to you until they leave home".
Brilliant? No, things are getting out of hand, so before social services get wind of
this, I’m making no excuses and leaving to enjoy the summer.
Notes:
These computer programs are widely available through stores or mail order.
Drawing: Kid Pix Studio (age 6+) from Broderbund; Creative Artist (age 8+) from
Microsoft. Crayola
Art Adventure (age 4+) from Micrografx.
Animation: 3D Movie Maker (age 9+) from Microsoft
Writing: Creative Writer (age 9+) from Microsoft
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