Going back to school can be tiresome for kids, managing the sudden study load while finding little time to squeeze in playtime. To make school hours more interesting and enjoyable for them, teachers and parents can definitely work together for immersive activities and rejuvenate their motivation.
In This Article
After 8 long weeks of whiling away the summer break, entering the classrooms to sit on the benches for hours is plain boring.
What used to be a day filled with playing video games, napping whenever, going out to eat, or hanging out with friends, is replaced with scheduled classes, piles of new books, and long hours of lectures.
Who would even choose the latter?
Quite literally, no one. Not even the nerdy ones, perhaps.
So, to take things up a notch and give a try to make the end of summer break “not so disappointing”, incorporating back-to-school activities for kids could be somewhat fun.
For UAE school kids, it would also mean a pleasant distraction from the intense heat, while being able to focus on what truly matters.
Why Back-to-School Activities Matter?
But these activities aren’t just meant to help the kids settle into the classes after the break.
If you give the activities enough thought, these could also cater to diverse benefits:
Classroom Environment
Classrooms where the students simply nod and repeat is, honestly, daunting.
It’s a no-fun for the students, and tiring to the bones for the teachers.
Conversely, an energized classroom where the kids participate, and enjoy, is what every teacher fancies. And that’s precisely what back-to-school activities aim for.
Bonding between Classmates
What else?
Well, this scenario is pretty obvious: One student gets along with another, but doesn’t quite gel with someone else. Again, one group of kids is always at odds with the other.
Although this is all too common (we’ve all been there, done that), with us being “adults” now, we know that there’s more to what reality requires.
This is where such activities come in, where the children learn coordination and rapport building.
They participate, help each other out as teams, and learn how team alignment makes or breaks even the smallest of things.
Practicing Skills and Values
Now, we all know that not all kids are the same.
Some are over-the-top active, some are goofy and talkative, while some are so shy that even an earthquake wouldn’t make them speak their minds.
When back-to-school activities come into play, each of these children is grouped into one (quite terrifying to think!).
And what’s the outcome?
Each one of them gradually learns to utilize their strengths and hone their shortcomings.
The other two help the shy one become more vocal and confident, while the shy one helps the other two be calmer in certain situations.
For individual or group activities that require thinking and imagining, these are seamless ways for the kids to find a creative outlet besides studies.
Sense of Belonging
If you’re aware of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, love and belonging were placed as a core human need, even above physiological and safety needs, when ranked.
Schools being a community: bringing students, teachers, and staff together under a shared location and purpose, feeling a sense of belonging is a dire need.
To be fair, it’s the same for any institution, even workplaces.
Participating in various activities as teams or groups can, therefore, foster that feeling within, and even the quietest student won’t feel left out. It’s true for the classroom jester too, since their comedic nature might be considered “annoying” to people outside their class, sometimes even to their own classmates.
12 Back-to-School Ideas for UAE Classrooms
Classroom scavenger hunt and others have been an icebreaker activity for the longest of time. We already know the drill.
Keeping all such things in mind, for the kids’ development and wellness throughout the school term, we’ve compiled a few fresh back-to-school activity ideas:
- Animate from Audio
Adobe Express has an “Animate Character” feature that can be used by the children to gain hands-on skills.
It’s a fun way to turn their uploaded audio clip and lip-sync it with an animated character of their choice.
Choosing from hundreds of options available in their stock, this can be an interesting way for the students to share a bit with their classmates. They can include clips about themselves or how they spent their summer break. Meanwhile, learning how to utilize content creation software and getting used to the digital realm.
- Design a Poster: BFF Edition
Using colorful chart papers, glitter, washi tapes, Sharpies, assorted paper cut-outs, printed photos, and much more, children can design posters with their best friend.
To make it more enjoyable, teachers could provide them with themes, like BFF Edition, where they simply share moments of their friendship on a poster or even a scrapbook on a day of school. .
- Summer Break Pictionary
Another rather exciting way to have each student participate in classroom activities could be a Pictionary session.
This is where the students are given yet another theme (think: Summer break visits or memories), and the kids can take turns to draw and guess what their fellows did or which places they went to.
In a way, the children will learn how each one of them has vastly different lives, but they share the same classroom. Learning inclusivity in enjoyable ways is surely something that’ll come in handy later in their lives.
- Scratch and Program
Incorporating educational tools available online is a must in this age and time.
With this in mind, Mitchel Resnick designed a visual programming language, primarily for children. The tagline “Imagine, Program, Share” stands true to its words and lets the kids learn programming through interactive stories, games, and animations, for free!
So, let the kids ditch the textbook for a day and explore programming through play!
- Digital Journaling
Online tools like DiaryZapp, Me: A Kid’s Diary, eDiary, Angel Diary, and WebNotePad, are designed specifically while keeping children’ s needs in mind.
As teachers, parents, or guardians, you can introduce them to such e-tools and help them reflect on their daily lives and experiences.
Making journaling accessible in this way, you can even have the kids present one of their designed pages to share with their friends and classmates.
Canva can be another useful platform for the little ones to get acquainted with the digital world and unleash their creative sides, alongside being book smart.
Quite an interesting take on back-to-school initiative, isn’t it?
- Crafting Backpack Tags
DIY arts and crafts, like making backpack name tags, for a back-to-school activity, should be mandatory. The little, bubbly ones in kindergarten will especially love this during their school year!
For this, the teacher could provide school supplies for the creative flair:
- Cardstock and chart papers
- Duct tapes
- Washi tapes
- Sign pens and markers
- Stickers and vinyl decals
- Colorful ribbons and strings
- Wooden and crystal beads
- Foil sheets and glitter sheets
- Printed paper sheets
- Decorative edge scissors
- Hole punches
- Self-laminating pouches
For a hassle-free activity session, the teachers can show an easy tutorial on the projector, so the kids can visualize it better.
- Bring a Plant to School
This one here has been a time-honored school activity, practiced widely and particularly in schools with vast fields for playing and gardening.
The students can bring small potted plants from their respective homes or paint a plant pot for the same.
If such back-to-school fun tasks aren’t possible or permitted, here are some ways to bring gardening into the classroom.
- Handprint Tree
Given that bringing a plant to school is deemed to be a hassle, this could be a fun alternative for the school term.
The kids can take turns to print their hands on a large canvas or chart paper, put their photographs and names on it, and make an entire tree out of it.
Another idea could be to add the children’ s birthdays and hang the canvas on one side of the classroom. This way, the kids can wish and celebrate each other’s birthdays, without forgetting any single classmate.
The OG activities were surely something!
- Book Swapping Week
While all the kids might not like or support this idea (bibliophobia can be cruel!), this is a healthy habit for anyone to start and grow with.
Since most parents tend to buy tons of storybooks for their children each school year, the students can utilize the summer break to catch up on some reading. Afterwards, they can swap the books with their friends and classmates as a back-to-school activity, so everyone gets to read more new books!
It’s how the saying goes, “There is only one thing that could replace a book: The next book.”
- Build a Playlist
Now, this activity right here could be a tad bit tough to implement, but hear us out.
Remember how we, as millennials or gen-z’s, used to break the rules and pass our pendrives to share our newly-discovered songs and playlists?
The teachers could turn this into a back-to-school activity where the students get to build their playlist throughout the summer break and share it with the class. These could be later merged to make their end-of-term celebration or class parties even more joyful!
- Storybook and Dress-Up
This one is exactly what the name says.
You bring your favorite storybook to class and dress up as your favorite character for a day. Pre-schoolers and kindergarteners, even young schoolers, would surely drool over this plan.
Don’t forget to include their favorite DC or Marvel comics!
- Personality Island Scrapbook
Most of you have already seen the hype of “Personality Islands”, inspired by Disney/Pixar’s “Inside Out”.
As an educational and reflective application of this concept, the kids can design a scrapbook where they reflect upon their core traits, passions, and values.
Some of the widely used common examples of this real-life adaptation include: creativity island, adventure island, empathy island, resilience island, and knowledge island.
Later, the kids can store this in their time capsule box and rediscover it years later – a taste of nostalgia!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- When do schools reopen in the UAE after the summer break of 2026?
Typically lasting 2 months, or 8 weeks, all the public and private schools in the UAE will reopen and resume classes from August 31, 2026.
- How long are the winter breaks in the UAE?
Winter breaks or vacations in the UAE usually last 4 weeks, the last one being from August 2025 to July 3, 2026.
- What are some key back-to-school tips?
As parents of UAE kids, helping the children in maintaining a consistent routine, ensuring a healthy diet, pre-planning and organizing school supplies for academic success, managing their screen time, and encouraging ECAs are some of the major things to keep in mind. It’s also important to promote their safety in the school premises and outside it, while also including fun activities to keep them happy and motivated.
To call it a day, a little note to the parents and teachers who are planning and coordinating on back to school activities for kids: Be patient and make it a worthwhile memory for them!
Just so you know, children typically remember things from the ages of 5 to 10 the most and the best.
You understand the rest.
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