Ideas for Spring Break Activities for Tweens

As kids get older, it can be harder to get the interested in any kind of activity that involves hanging out as a family.

But we still have to do something over spring break, or any other holiday from school. We don’t want to completely leave them to their own devices (literally, in the case of my 9-year-old, who will listen to Audiobooks on her iPad all day if I let her). But we’d like to keep the eye-rolling and grudging participation to a minimum, too.

Kitchen Counter Chronicle has some ideas for spring break activities for tweens that the whole family will enjoy. Whether it’s a day of gaming, letting the kids cook or putting on jammies and watching a movie, among other things, these ideas will help you do some bonding and give them good answers to the question “what did you do for spring break?” even if you were at home the whole time.

What do you do with tweens on school holidays? I’d love to hear your ideas.

[Photo: Kitchen Counter Chronicle.]

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In our continuing exploration of lesser known holidays, let’s take a look at Terry Fox Day, which is probably one you know if you’re Canadian.

Terry Fox was a Canadian athlete who had a leg amputated at age 18 because of cancer and then did a cross-country run to raise awareness and funding for cancer research. He was born July 28, 1958, and the first Monday in August is celebrated as Terry Fox Day in Manitoba.

Fox is considered a kind of folk hero in Canada despite the difficulties of traveling across Canada on foot (no one on his team spoke French, for example, the weather was often bad and cars would force him off the road) and the low number of donations at the beginning of his run. He ultimately had to end his run after 143 days and 3,339 miles, or 5,373 km, because his cancer had returned and spread to his lungs, but he raised $1.7 million, and a telethon a week after he ended his run raised $10.5 million.

Check out some Terry Fox quotes collected by My Little Desire. You can learn more in this video from CBC Kids, and listen to the Terry Fox song illustrated by a first grade class.

Twinkl has a bunch of Terry Fox related activities in both English and French, including an activity pack with a maze and word search, a coring challenge, a fact sheet and coloring page.

Most of the resources I could find were at Teachers Pay Teachers, but you can learn more about the activity pack for grades 1-3 that Mrs. Bremer’s Class has made, which tells his story and has kids write things they learned and discuss why they think he is a hero.

Creative Classroom Core has a few paid resources include writing activities, reading comprehension and a Terry Fox fact book.

That Fun Reading Teacher has a K-2 singalong with a differentiated reader and activity to teach kids about him.

You can also celebrate Terry Fox Day by talking about what makes a person a hero and who the kids in your home or classroom think of as heroes. And if you’re Canadian, there are Terry Fox runs in more than 650 communities in September, so you can make plans to participate or cheer on the runners to remember his legacy.

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