Highlights Magazine Online Activities for the Summer

First things first—give yourself a well deserved pat on the back! Most of us are reaching the end of our tenth week of staying safer at home.

While COVID-19 may have caused your family to postpone plans, it can’t cancel summer, right? This year’s break is going to look different, but with a little optimism, it can still be a summer of fun. As you pivot from helping with schoolwork to becoming Activity Director, Highlights Magazine is sharing Highlights@Home resource collections on their website. All the resources are free and available for downloads. There are stories, videos, art and craft ideas, riddles and puzzles – everything you might want to keep your kids engaged and learning while having fun.

It hasn’t always been easy and maybe it wasn’t all pretty, but we know you’ve created some warm “quarantine memories” with your kids. No matter how many games and activities you plan, though, your children are likely feeling the loss of connection with friends and extended family.

To help ease their disappointment, Highlights recently added “Staying Connected” theme to Highlights@Home, and it’s full of ways you can help your kids feel more connected to people they love but can’t safely see right now. These “Fun with a Purpose” activities will keep your children thinking and practicing reading, writing, and math. But there’s an added bonus: the acts of reaching out to others will also help your child’s social-emotional development. As you and your children engage in these activities, you’ll have a chance to help them see that Grandma and Grandpa miss them as much as they miss their grandparents. As they draw pictures and make cards with messages of thanks and gratitude to the helpers, your kids will feel more connected to the broader world. Even these small, thoughtful acts are good ways to practice empathy. Redirecting our children’s thoughts away from their own disappointments by encouraging them to reach out and think about others helps them cope and keep a healthy perspective.