Beating the School Year BluesFor most of us, school is about to start – it’s the last precious few weeks of summer vacation before the daily grind starts up for another year.

School can have a draining effect on kids, even after they come home.  Homework can drain them to the point where they want to do nothing more than stare at the TV screen all day long.  You can fight this brain drain, though!  It’s a good idea to keep your kids active, both physically and mentally.  Here are some tips to beat those school year blues and keep your kids entertained and active throughout the year.

Family Game Night

Board games are a great way to bring the family together in a fun environment, with competition and cooperation.  In a world where more and more families are off doing their own individual things, coming together over a board game is a great place for conversation and bonding.  And don’t feel like you have to dust off the old Monopoly set or find your battered copy of Life – we’re going through a bit of a board game renaissance at the moment, with tons of new games for every experience level just waiting to be discovered.

Book Club

Schools tend to have one significant problem when encouraging kids to read – it’s usually off of some predetermined list of “classics”.  Now, these are great books that have stood the test of time, but it’s more important that your kid wants to read than what they read, exactly.  Reading together at home and talking about it is a great way to spend time together and work on those reading and critical thinking skills.  It doesn’t need to be a proper “school”-type book either – Harry Potter?  Knock yourself out.  A Spider-Man comic?  Sure thing.  An adaption of Frozen?  Well, we’ll never get the song out of our heads, but that’s fine, too.  Reading is reading – and talking about it with one another is a great way to keep those mental gears going.

Visit an Indoor Playground

One of the best way to keep kids physically active, of course, is to visit an indoor playground like Kids Fun City!  For healthy physical activity, very little can beat our indoor playground – and we have fun activities and experiences for kids of all ages.  It’s especially great in the winter months, when it’s not always possible to go outside thanks to the cold and the snow.  Kids Fun City is family fun all year round!