What Should Kids Do Over Winter Break? A 14-Day Plan
As winter break approaches, parents tend to swing between two ideas: "Let them just rest for two weeks" and "Let's use the time to really push maths." The best answer sits in between. Children need to recharge, but if two weeks pass with no routine, no books and lots of screen time, going back to school in January is tough. Below is a balanced 14-day plan: every day includes some rest, fresh air, reading, a short practice session and family time.
What is the "holiday slide" and should you worry?
After a long break, children often seem to have "forgotten" a bit: mental arithmetic slows down, times tables get muddled, reading feels slower. Educators call this learning loss over the holidays. It is most noticeable after the long summer, but even a two-week winter break can make the first week back harder if the daily rhythm falls apart completely.
The good news is that you do not need "lessons during the holidays" to prevent it. A skill stays fresh when it is used a little every day. Fifteen to twenty minutes a day does not tire a child out, yet it tells the brain "this skill is still needed."
The shape of a day: a simple formula
Think of each day not as a strict timetable but as five building blocks. You can change their order and timing to suit your family:
- Sleep. Going to bed a little later is fine, but try to keep the shift under an hour, or early January mornings will be a struggle.
- Outdoor time — at least an hour. Playing in the snow, a walk, the playground or a trip to the market together all count.
- Reading — 20–30 minutes. A book your child picked, not a compulsory list.
- Brain practice — 15–20 minutes. Mental arithmetic, number work or attention and memory games, in the morning or after lunch while your child is still fresh.
- Family time. Board games, cooking together, visiting relatives.
You do not have to ban screens altogether; it is enough to set limits and grow the useful part. We cover this in our article on making screen time useful.
Week 1: rest and a gentle rhythm (days 1–7)
The goal of the first week is to shake off tiredness and turn a short daily session into a habit. Keep tasks easy and game-like.
- Day 1. A full day off. Make a holiday plan with your child: where you will go, what you will read. Pin it on the wall.
- Day 2. The first 15-minute session: easy mental arithmetic or familiar abacus-style sums. Then a long walk.
- Day 3. Attention day: a Schulte table or a spot-the-difference game. A family board game in the evening.
- Day 4. Memory day: a game of remembering sequences of digits or words. Your child reads a chapter and retells it to you briefly.
- Day 5. Maths in real life: add up prices in a shop, scale the quantities in a recipe.
- Day 6. Light day: only 10 minutes of practice, the rest for visits or a trip.
- Day 7. A small review: what did your child enjoy this week? What should change in the plan? Ask for their opinion.
Week 2: rebuilding the rhythm and getting ready for school (days 8–14)
In the second week practice goes a little deeper, and bedtime gradually moves back towards the school routine.
- Day 8. Pick one topic that was hard last term (times tables or carrying over ten, for example) and give it 15 focused minutes.
- Day 9. The same topic as a game: flashcards, a speed challenge, a contest against a parent.
- Day 10. Attention and speed: a Schulte table again, and compare the result with day 3.
- Day 11. Outdoor day: just 10 minutes of practice, the rest for sport and walks.
- Day 12. Move bedtime closer to the school schedule. Twenty morning minutes for reading and practice.
- Day 13. Pack the school bag and notebooks together. Some light revision.
- Day 14. Wrap-up: compare day 2 with day 14 and praise your child for the effort. End the day with rest.
If you find it hard to connect the break with your normal routine, our article on a school child's daily routine can help.
How to structure a 15–20 minute daily session
The strength of a short session lies in its regularity. It helps to split it into three parts:
- Warm-up (3–5 minutes). Easy sums or a familiar game, so your child starts with a feeling of success.
- Main part (8–10 minutes). One focus only: numbers, memory or attention. Not all of them every day.
- Finish (2–3 minutes). A favourite game or "today's record." The session should end on a good note.
We explain how to fit mental arithmetic and brain games into one day in our article on a daily practice routine.
Avoiding overload: six rules for parents
- A break is not school. There is no need for more than 20 minutes of required practice a day. If your child wants more, that is another matter.
- A missed day breaks nothing. Just carry on tomorrow without "making up" the lost time.
- Praise the process, not the grade. "You worked with real focus for 15 minutes today" helps more than "well done, top mark."
- Offer a choice. "Numbers or a memory game today?" Children put more into what they chose.
- Do not start hard new topics. The break is for consolidating; new material is better started with the teacher.
- Join in. A contest with mum or dad is the best motivation there is.
Fourteen days with MentalMath: a ready-made plan
Inventing new tasks every day and remembering past scores adds to a parent's load. Brain Plan in MentalMath is exactly a 14-day plan with a single focus: your child picks one area — memory, attention, thinking speed or mental arithmetic — and does at least one exercise or game in it each day. A 14-day calendar shows which days are done, and parents receive a summary on Telegram on day 7 and day 14.
For attention days, the Schulte Grid on the site is handy: time and mistakes are counted automatically, so comparing day 3 with day 10 is easy. Above all, let the break stay a real rest for your child, with practice as a short and enjoyable part of the day.
