This article is a compilation of the 5 Summer Activities for School Students to Take Up During Your Vacations. Read till the end!
All school students look forward to vacations. These are the best of days when apart from the assigned holiday homework, all you have to do is wake up to a hot and fresh breakfast (unlike the one that gets cold in your tiffin boxes), spend time with your family, go on a holiday, and pick up new hobbies.
Talking about hobbies, picking one up is considered to be the best way to qualitatively celebrate your vacations while also utilising the 30+ days effectively and efficiently.
Hobbies can be of any kind – some people like to join summer camps in their own schools or in neighbouring schools. Some people like to try their hands at music, dance, painting, learning a new language, or abacus. There are so many options to choose from that students sometimes also tend to get confused.
In this article, we will talk about the 5 best ways to utilise your vacations by taking up any summer activities of your choice. Stay with us till the end!
Let’s take a look at the different things we will discuss in this article.
Table of Contents
Why are Summer Activities Important for You?
It’s okay to not want to do anything during your summer vacations too. Sometimes, all you really wish to do is relax and take things slow.
However, there are some reasons why you should take up Summer Activities during your vacations:
Summer Activities Help Keep Your Brain Engaged
There are chances that your mind becomes slow during vacations, especially when you’re not regularly studying or playing with your friends. It’s always a good idea to keep your mind engaged with a few activities. Staying busy is always great for the brain. New skills and hobbies are like fuel to your brain.
You Feel Confident Learning a New Skill
Imagine rejoining school after your vacations knowing you learnt something new during your break. That feeling is unparalleled and everybody should experience it while studying at school. Learning a new skill helps you feel confident and the sense of accomplishment alone drives you to learn more.
5 Summer Activities for School Students to Take Up During Your Vacations
Learn How to Play a Musical Instrument
There’s one thing you’ll read recurringly in this article – which is ‘why’ you should take up a new hobby. When we discuss why you should take up a new hobby, we would like to emphasize on one reason for this, which is ‘brain activity’. We won’t hesitate in mentioning this throughout the article, because this is very true and important for most of these activities.
So, starting from this skill or hobby, learning how to play an instrument is one of the best things you can do to entertain yourself, your family and friends, and also feel a lot more confident around other people.
When you learn how to play a musical instrument, your brain tends to grasp the tactics and techniques of how to move your hands or your feet, how to maintain hand-eye coordination, how to follow the beats of a song, and how to mellifluously create a rhythm.
Some people are naturally gifted and playing instruments comes naturally to them. However, anybody can learn how to be an expert with enough practice and a sufficient amount of willingness to learn.
As read on the National Library of Medicine (which is an official health website of the US state government), “Learning to play a musical instrument provides a peaceful retreat from the pressures of daily life. Therapeutic outcomes of playing music include better communication skills, improved emotional release, and decreased anxiety and agitation. Musical training promotes cognitive function, mental health, and a connection to others.”
Music also relieves stress – you can already experience that when you simply listen to music, if not play an instrument. Chances are, with playing music, your good hormones rise and there is an increase in the level of serotonin in your body, which is the feel-good hormone.
But enough about health! Do you know that playing a new musical instrument also builds creativity? We as students are always stuck in the rat race trying to score the highest out of our peers. But, maybe playing the guitar or the cello makes you want to write a new song of your own?
So, when are you signing up for one of those music lessons?
Volunteer at a Local NGO
It’s never a bad idea to help someone out. One of the greatest things you can do in your free time is to be of help to someone who really needs it. NGOs give you such opportunities to meet and interact with people from different walks of life.
You can participate in various activities like city clean-up drives, teaching English to small children who don’t have access to education, or just going to a small town and talking to some people who might need someone to talk to.
Old Age Homes are also very comforting places where you can sit with the elderly and get wiser by listening to their stories and maybe sharing some of your own, too!
According to Save the Children, “Non-Governmental Organisations, or NGOs, as they are called in common parlance, are organisations which are involved in carrying out a wide range of activities for the benefit of underprivileged people and the society at large.
As the name suggests, NGOs work independently, without any financial aid of the government although they may work in close coordination with the government agencies for executing their projects.”
There are many communities in India with limited means and resources and you can act as a helping hand to at least one of these while you’re free. After all, humans have a gift which they can give without spending any money at any point of time – the gift of ‘giving’.
Teach Yourself the Basic Skill of Cooking
We as a society live as though women are supposed to work in the kitchen and very rarely do the men in the household or even children help out the woman in charge.
Although the times are changing and there are many families which lend a helping hand to the mothers/wives, cooking should not just be learnt to ‘help’ our mothers but to learn a basic survival skill.
Whether you’re a girl or a boy reading this article, you’re a school student and will someday grow to live apart from your family. Independence is a decision everyone should make. During those years, you can always treat yourself to scrumptious foods and delicacies if you’re an expert.
There’s a sense of accomplishment you’ll get when you learn how to cook. Everybody should make their own food because nobody in this world is entitled to ask for help from others.
There are many schools and classes which teach cooking, but if you think one of your parents can teach you well, you can always start learning from home. Make one dish/meal per day, and surprise everyone in your family by laying the table and filling up their tummies with some delicious food that will leave them licking their fingers.
If you’re a beginner and are very nervous about cooking, try out these simple foods listed by Insider, which they talk about the basic dishes/meals that everybody should know how to cook.
Also, don’t worry if you burn something every once in a while. Just try not to burn your house down! (pun intended)
Learn a New Language
When you learn a new language, you open yourself to a world of new possibilities. Of course, you cannot learn a new language completely in a span of 30-40 days, but you can always bite the bullet and just get started with it during this time.
There are many languages in this world which are spoken in not just one but many neighbouring countries. There are always immigrants who might visit your country too and speak the language you’re learning.
The easiest and one of the most culturally-rich languages is French. There are many institutes that teach French in India and around the world, one of them being the many branches of Alliance Française. Visit the official website of Alliance Française de India and explore the batches in your city of residence.
But remember, this is not the only option. You can learn many other languages like Spanish, Italian, or German.
Learning a new language is very engaging and is a good exercise for your brain, considering you have to memorise a lot of things and speak to a lot of people to learn the language all the time.
A great way to practice your newly learnt language is by hopping on to one of the houses in Clubhouse and making new friends from the country you’re learning the language of.
As The Times of India also rightly points out, “Improve your social & networking skills: The world is a ‘global village’ and without proper communication skills, you won’t be able to progress in any field. Today, language skills are one of the most sought-after skills by employers. Also, companies are willing to hire employees who can connect easily with a wider range of people. So, language learning helps you to develop your interpersonal skills and other social skills.”
Start Your Fitness Journey
It’s never too early or too late to start exercising. As school students, we wake up early in the morning to go to school, sit all day in our classrooms and study, come back home and sleep, have dinner at night, and then sleep again.
Well, some of us do like to stay active and we go out for playing basketball with our friends or even going cycling by the lake, but not everybody is so engrossed and dedicated to maintaining a good and healthy lifestyle.
School time is a wonderful time to get into a routine, and what better than 40 days off from school when you actually need a routine so you don’t fall into the trap of waking up late and going back to bed post-midnight?
Apart from helping you with fitness, making you feel more confident, helping you pass your time productively, and making you feel happier, exercise can and will always help prevent chronic diseases.
Since we are young, we need to start educating ourselves about such things, so we start early, and maybe even tell our parents about the advantages of exercise, so that all of you in your family can exercise together.
According to Healthline, “Lack of regular physical activity is a primary cause of chronic disease. Regular exercise has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, heart health, and body composition. It can also decrease blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
More specifically, exercise can help reduce or prevent the following chronic health conditions.”
Many of us are also worried about our skin looking perfect and we usually crib about the way we look. While all bodies and faces are beautiful, you can always improve your skin health by releasing fluids in the form of sweating through regular exercises.
Healthline also states, “Oxidative stress occurs when the body’s antioxidant defences cannot completely repair the cell damage caused by compounds known as free radicals. This can damage the structure of the cells and negatively impact your skin.
Even though intense and exhaustive physical activity can contribute to oxidative damage, regular moderate exercise can actually increase your body’s production of natural antioxidants, which help protect cells.”
Opinion
All days should be utilised well. However, your vacations are a time to relax, too. Summer activities can be taken up whenever you feel like it. You can also take them up after your summer vacation.
Cut yourself some slack if you really don’t wish to do anything apart from relaxing and spending time with your family. But, if given a chance, take up at least one of these things so you grow more confident and keep providing the necessary fuel to your brain.
All the best!
Image taken from here.
