Now that the end of the school year is nearing, many of us are looking forward to the summer break. However, it can be difficult to know exactly what to do when school is out. Plus, summer slide is looming over all of us. Fear not, for here are some engaging activities you can do at home over the summer that will help you expand your skills!
If you’re the type to enjoy creative writing, you can try to describe a picture in a thousand words. That’s what they say it’s worth, after all. Snap a photo of your daily life or even take a screenshot of your favorite show and try to describe what’s happening in it. Who is in the picture? Where are they? What are they doing? You can try to meet a thousand words exactly, or you can be satisfied with getting near it. This will help you describe scenes and actions more naturally, and it might help you expand your vocabulary as well. If you choose to meet exactly a thousand words to the picture, you’ll train your rewriting skills so that you can rephrase sections without sounding awkward.
If you don’t like to write, that’s okay too. You can get into board games! You might need a second person for this, but board games are proven to build your logical reasoning skills and help you retain information better. They’re very fun ways to pass the time, too. All board games can help with reasoning skills, but ones like scrabble and sudoku are especially good at this.
Another thing you can do is pick up a crafting hobby. Hands-on activities keep you focused and help you maintain your reasoning skills, just like board games do. They also help you build your creativity, warding against that summer slide artist’s block. If you have a project to do, you’re more likely to be able to adhere to a schedule and less likely to sleep past lunch. Fun crafting hobbies include fiber crafts, such as knitting, crocheting, weaving, and sewing; paper crafts, such as origami and kirigami; metal crafts, such as chainmailing, engraving, and metal stamping; sculpting, with clay or another material; and woodworking, including carving and carpentry. Some of these crafts may require more tools and safety precautions than others, but many of them, such as paper crafts, are incredibly safe and basically free. Don’t be afraid to try something new — if you end up not liking it, you can just stop! There’s no pressure to commit to one craft, and skills often transfer between skills as well.
Digital hobbies are fine as well and can be just as good. Consider getting into 3D modelling, with free programs like Blender or Tinkercad. 3D modelling can be similar to sculpting, or it can be very different. There’s no initial commitment necessary, so try it out! 3D modelling, especially on the CAD(computer-aided design) side, is closely linked to engineering and mathematics, so if you are a STEM student, it will help you retain some of the concepts you learned over the school year.
Now that you have so many things to do over the summer break, don’t fret about boredom or losing your skills. Have fun, explore your interests, and have a good summer break!