It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday in the middle of June. Both you and your kids are looking forward to them leaving the house and spending the day at the pool. But then there is a crack of lightning. The kids have been cooped up for only a couple hours and the atmosphere already has taken a decidedly “Lord of the Flies” turn. You need to come up with a rainy day activity quick! Activity books for kids are perfect for indoor days like this! The best kids activity books provide fun activities while they expose kids to a new subject area and improve problem-solving skills.
5 Things To Love About Kids Activity Books
Have a long car ride coming up? Or just need some quiet time? The best kids activity book will provide a wide variety of activities and logic puzzles to keep of all ages entertained and learning at the same time. Here are five reasons to keep a selection of activity books on hand.
Less Screen Time
Avoid the obvious stay busy “activity” of putting a movie on the TV and retreating to a quiet place for a couple hours. Kids have too much screen time as it is. Studies show that kids spend 4 hours a day passively watching a screen. And that amount almost doubles on days when weather prevents them from escaping into the outdoors.
So, how about cracking open activity books for kids instead? Will the kids whine when you first make this suggestion? Probably. But if you chose the right activity book, your child will be much more engaged and satisfied after spending the day doing hands-on activities than they would staring at a lifeless screen. What’s more, they’ll be improving skills needed to succeed in school and life.
More Reading
Countless studies have shown that a child’s early reading experience is critical to long-term academic success. In fact, a 2011 study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation concluded that students who can’t read on grade level by the 3rd grade are four times less likely to graduate from high school on time than proficient readers.
Reading doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, by encouraging your kids to read with fun activity books you’ll be helping them develop good reading habits and superior concentration skills. Using educational activity books for hands-on learning has been shown to help in the development of language and reading.
Improved Comprehension Skills
Kid’s activity books help children develop their reading ability while participating in a range of literacy and critical thinking activities. Their comprehension skills naturally improve as they puzzle out the different steps to complete an activity.
It is also a great chance for them to increase their knowledge of a variety of subjects from outer space to animals. A fun activity book for a younger child will include lots of coloring pages, beautiful illustrations, picture puzzles, and sight words. The best activity books for older kids will include brain games, word problems, open-ended questions, and other challenging activities.
Fun Together Activity
What’s more, your direct involvement in reading and hands-on activities will benefit both you and your kids. Several recent studies show that children are better prepared for school if their parents read aloud to them. Young children whose parents read aloud to them have better language and literacy skills when they go to school. Children who have been read aloud to are also more likely to develop a love of reading, which can be even more important than the head start in language and literacy.
Increase Knowledge And Develop Their Interest
Best of all, activity books for kids are available on every imaginable topic to meet the interest of boys and girls of all ages. For example, many popular activity books for kids, like those from World Book Encyclopedia, offer science experiments, crafts, and ideas for indoor safaris. Others are aimed at letter writing skills or story writing. There is an activity book for every child! National geographic kids offers an awesome World Atlas Sticker Activity Book for little geography lovers (here is my affiliate link). There are so many fun themes available.
Conclusion on Children’s Activity Books
While activity books for kids won’t make the rain go away, they will offer essential exercise for a child’s most important organ: the brain. So turn off the screen and open a book, and though the weather may continue to storm outside, the atmosphere will be much sunnier inside!
Do your children enjoy activity books? What are some of their favorite activity books for kids?
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