Winter holiday learning through play

Winter holidays are a wonderful chance for school kids to slow down, sleep in, recharge, and reconnect as a family.

They are also the perfect opportunity to sneak in learning through books, games, and everyday activities.

Here are a few of our favourite games that have had our family laughing together while building important skills along the way. I would love to hear your ideas too.

Bananagrams is a classic, but still one of our favourites. It can easily be adapted for younger children who are learning sounds and beginning to read.

My First Bananagrams uses lowercase letters and two-letter combination tiles that align beautifully with early phonics learning.

I also use the original Bananagrams with my younger kids by simply choosing a smaller selection of letters and encouraging them to build simple two- or three-letter words with me.

You do not even need to buy the official game. A set of Scrabble letters works just as well.

Created by Perth mum Tori Bowman, Alphabet I Spy is such a fun family activity.

Finding hidden objects in a busy picture encourages children to slow down, notice details, and make connections between objects, sounds, and letters.

Older kids can also use it as a playful way to practise typing skills.

Created by Aussie mums for children aged 4 to 8, Sound Slam focuses on phonological awareness: the ability to hear and play with sounds in words.

That skill is a crucial foundation before children learn to connect sounds to letters. If you want the reading-science background, Five from Five has a helpful phonemic awareness explainer.

The best part is that kids are having so much fun they do not even realise they are learning. It can also be adapted depending on where your child is on their reading journey.

Many parents know the adult version of CATAN, but CATAN Junior is fantastic for younger children.

Without even realising it, kids practise maths, probability, decision-making, negotiation, and critical thinking skills.

Articulate Kids always creates plenty of laughs. I used to bring it into the classroom on the final day of the year when I was a teacher.

Children build vocabulary, sentence structure, and confidence as they practise explaining ideas and describing things clearly.

Older children naturally develop more sophisticated language, reasoning, and communication skills.

This year I have also printed AI-generated workbooks for my older children based on the areas they need to strengthen.

Rather than generic worksheets, I have focused on the things they find challenging and added topics and formats I know will motivate them. If you are thinking about AI and learning, we have also shared our thoughts on reading in the AI era.

To create these, it just required me to understand what my children needed to practise and what would actually engage them.

The goal is not to teach new content, but to build confidence by strengthening the foundations they already have.

We will see how it goes.