Planning for Summer in Lagos

It is always a good idea to plan ahead for the long summer holiday and what and how you will occupy your children. Yes they should rest but too much idleness is probably not ideal. Some of the things to consider while planning for summer in Lagos are – 

• Staying home

You can create a summer timetable to keep them occupied. Activities can range from cooking lessons and meal preparation for children old enough for this. Children can focus on projects and be encouraged to write a story book from start to finish, learn to ride a bicycle or some other project they are interested in. Take them through routes they don’t usually go through during the school year to see parts of their city. Have they gone across the various bridges? Third mainland versus Carter bridge, or the Lekki toll booth? Make it a point to visit local attractions such as the National Theatre.

• Travel

You could perhaps use this time to travel with the children somewhere locally. You can go to the village or hometown? or consider visiting places like Badagry or drive to Epe. Laslty uou can also be a bit more adventurous and cross the border to neighbouring Togo or Benin Republic.

• Travel international

Have you booked your ticket? Thought about what assistance you will need while you are abroad. Have you checked up on the things that can keep kids engaged? There is no point spending all that money to travel out and then just sit home all day, watching tv is the same anywhere. Shopping for the year in advance? You can decide to order some items online for delivery to reduce the number of things you must run around to do. Have you checked that passports and visas are still valid?

Plan on returning at least a week before school resumes to give the kids at least a week to settle back into home routine before resuming to a new demanding school year.

Summer camps

You could sign up the children to a summer camp. They are usually available per week, per day or for the whole summer. These should be confirmed to be safe environments that have experience running such camps. It could be a good opportunity for the children to learn skills and not focus only on school work. consider camps offering languages, creativity, music, technology or other basic skills like cooking, sewing etc. No skill is wasted. [Read: Summer Activities for Children]

Lesson

Do your children need some help in a particular area? You could get a home or group tutor who can help your child through some areas he or she might need help with. It is not a time to necessarily pick up the next year syllabus and try to be ahead.

Internship

Depending on the age of the child you might want to consider letting the child get some experience in a company for an internship. It is a good way to augment classroom learning with the real world. A child considering a specific career can spend sometime with a company in that profession. A child could also just do a guided internship for fun. For example a child interested in fashion can intern with a fashion designer, or interested in baking spend sometime with a bakery owner. Make sure to structure these internships so its beneficial for the child. If possible let the child earn some money too that he or she can learn to save.

Timetable

Whatever you decide to do with your child over the summer a timetable is a good idea as it helps to introduce some structure.

Security and safety must be highly considered during this period. Setup ground rules such for the household to follow such as friends are only allowed over if there is an adult at home. If your children are staying home remember that their caregivers are home with high energy children all day with no school to break the day. Do remember they are human and will need a break too, help them to find times to take breaks over the summer.