This time of year, many of our students will find themselves on a well-deserved break from school! Everyone should try to take a breather during the holiday season, but it can be hard to get “back into gear” when vacation is over. Most teachers give assignments over the holidays, and knowing how to balance study and fun can “make or break” your vacation!
Make a schedule. Regardless of what you have been assigned during the holidays, it’s generally always a good idea to make a schedule. If you are required to complete a reading assignment, try splitting up the pages into different days so you won’t get bogged down. If you’ve got an essay or a big project, plan out what days you’ll be working on it. The most common problem for students during the holiday break is procrastination. You don’t want to find yourself with only a few days left of vacation and a backlog of assignments to complete. That’s no fun! By making a schedule to stay organized, you can avoid these problems altogether.
Prepare for the return to school. Many students transition to a new semester when returning from holiday break. If you have preparatory assignments or classroom materials that need to be purchased, the holiday break is a great time to get it done! If you know you will need a new binder or notebook for your next semester of class, go school shopping and take advantage of some of those great holiday deals!
Get your family involved. Teachers often assign larger projects over the holidays because they know students will have several weeks at home to work on them. These big projects can be a lot of fun, but students often delay on starting the assignment and find themselves rushing to complete it at the last minute. At Tutor Doctor, we’ve seen all sorts of holiday projects – poster presentations, dioramas, scale models, science projects – just to name a few! These projects are usually more “hands on” than typical assignments and can be a great way to get your family involved (and spend time together)!
Don’t forget – it’s vacation! Most importantly, don’t forget to relax! After all, it is a holiday break! The holidays are a great time to unwind and catch up on life. Even if you do have assignments for school, you should still enjoy your vacation and time off. The main goal of our previous points – especially creating a schedule – is to maximize the amount of relaxation time you have! Many students procrastinate, and although this may temporarily allow them to ignore work, the problem doesn’t go away. You don’t want to be staying up until late the last week of the holiday break to rush through assignments when you should be using that time to enjoy the remaining days of your vacation!
As always, we wish you all a very happy holiday season! We want all of our students to keep up with their assignments, but don’t forget to have fun and enjoy your time off!
