Summer holidays

Welcome to Day 2 of Book Week: Summer. Today is all about the children and how books can help keep them happy (or quiet, or entertained, or learning…) over those long summer holiday weeks which will be starting in a few weeks (or may have already started).

I know I used to relish the opportunity (in secondary school and university) to read a wide variety of books over the summer holidays and not be limited to those I had to read for school or courses. I never stopped reading for pleasure, even when I had a pile of books to read and write essays on (and actually I quite enjoyed doing that, anyway), but it was always nice to have a long stretch of time to read in. As a  young child (before I left school for a few years to be home-educated), I can also recall the boredom of the long weeks of holiday stretching out ahead of me. Even then, books were something I used to fill the void (though I do also remember splashing in paddling pools and building dens and bouncing balls against the wall).

Today we have a couple of guest posts – one from Zoe from Playing by the book which will have you filling your wishlist (or heading down to your local bookshop) to fill your shelves and cupboards with activity books to fill those summer (almost certainly rain-filled) hours and another written by Sara Wernham of Jolly Learning about using phonics with early readers (and, in fact, some new activity books for the Jolly Phonics series).

There’s also a review of the Magic Tree House series and a piece about planning holiday topics or projects for your children to keep them engaged with their learning while out of school.

I hope you enjoy today’s child-centred theme.