With the arrival of the children’s favorite summer vacation, many parents start worrying about their children spending all day with phones, tablets, and computers at home. This not only wastes time but can also affect children’s vision, concentration, and learning ability.

Today, let’s share 5 low-cost ways to give children exposure to the world, making their days more enriching. “Seeing the world” doesn’t necessarily require spending a lot of money or traveling far. It’s about finding ways to pull children away from their narrow desks and expose them to the uncharted world.

Take a Money Lesson at the Market

The book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” says:
If you don’t teach your child about money in time, someone else will, like creditors, police, or even scammers.

Learning to deal with money is an essential lesson for children’s growth. The sooner you talk about money correctly with your child, the better they can understand the relationship between people, money, and the world.

The market is an important place for children to develop a sense of money.
Children might know the price of a cup of bubble tea or a celebrity photo card, but they may not have any concept of how much the vegetables and meat on our tables cost each day.

Without parental guidance, they might not realize that the money for a cup of bubble tea could be enough for a family’s meal, or that the money for a photo card could require standing in the market all day.

Therefore, taking children to the market can not only help them appreciate the hard work of earning money and value their pocket money more but also enable them to plan their spending wisely.

Education shouldn’t be confined to the classroom; the market is the best real-life classroom for children.

It might not be large, but the market is like a microcosm of society, offering children a chance to step into society early, feel the culture, learn financial management, and life.

Visit Museums to Feel the Weight of History

If you’re looking for a fast and fun way to broaden your child’s horizons and increase their knowledge, visiting museums is a must.

Artist Chen Danqing once said, “I attended the best university in the world, which is the museum.”

Museums bridge the past, present, and future, providing all knowledge and feelings. Each artifact is a silent teacher, taking us back through the river of history, condensing millennia of human evolution into a single day.

So, to understand a place’s past and present, starting from its museums is the best approach.

John, a museum enthusiast, has visited nearly a hundred exhibition halls with his son since kindergarten. Knowing the limited knowledge and understanding capacity of primary school students, he would research the exhibition in advance to focus on the essentials. He tries to mix science with the child’s interests when explaining.

He believes museum education can share artistic and cultural knowledge, help children understand national cultural and artistic traditions, cultivate aesthetic arts, guide future contemplation, and improve morals and personality. The nourishment obtained from museums can act like memory anchors, lasting longer, with higher reusability and transferability.

Perhaps, we can start from our doorstep, letting children feel history and enlighten wisdom.

Go Outdoors, Get Close to Nature

Many parents worship exam-oriented education, but textbooks should never be everything for a child.

Nature is a vast encyclopedia.

The book “Play is the Best Form of Learning” mentions: Nature is the best classroom. In the backyard or the nearby park, children can learn a lot, such as the mysteries of natural colors, scientific principles, and the secrets of plant growth.

During vacations, take your children outdoors to listen to cicadas and birds, and to see fish playing in the water. Mountains, rivers, birds returning to the forest, and smoke rising from cottages, aren’t these also a form of exposure?

If you don’t want to go far, just take your children to the nearby park.
Every plant, every drop of rain, every flower, and every bit of soil hide endless mysteries and profound wisdom. Here, not only can children’s observation and imagination be stimulated, and their spirit of exploration cultivated, but they can also enjoy the wonderful time of playing. Set up a tent, lay down a mat, bring some bread, water, and fruit, and enjoy a picnic with your children.

In the park, children can also make more friends and explore the unknown world together.

Visit Prestigious Schools to See a Broader World

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in “The Little Prince” said: If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood or assign them tasks, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Taking children out of concrete cages and closer to nature, seeing the vastness of the world, will naturally broaden their horizons.

Only after seeing the magnificent sea can one yearn for it. Only after knowing what good things are can one desire to chase them. So, take advantage of the summer vacation to visit prestigious schools with your children.

After seeing the colorful campus life, it might inspire their longing for university life. It’s like planting a seed of hope in their hearts.

However, visiting a campus isn’t just about taking photos and posting on social media. Parents need to do their homework in advance, understanding the education philosophy and profound heritage of prestigious schools. Only through physical perception and mental immersion can children’s deep desires and motivations be truly ignited.

Take Public Transport, Blend in with the Crowd

How to deal with “naughty children” in public places is a perennial hot topic on social media.

Some advocate strict treatment, letting naughty children learn lessons in social society; others advocate calmness and tolerance, as children are still children and controlling their behavior is normal.

However, as parents, how to prevent our children from becoming naughty is a long-term question.

Taking public transport might be a good choice to socialize children through a mini-journey.

Learning to act like adults, even if children don’t understand why they should do so now, they will subconsciously do so in the future.

So, if you have time, consider taking public transport more often with your children. And importantly, lead by example. This not only helps children develop a sense of safety but also allows them to better integrate into society.

Understand what actions make people like or dislike them. Know that the best form of rich upbringing is always to make a child well-mannered.

If you hesitate to teach your child, society will eventually teach them a lesson.

Final Words

Italian educator Maria Montessori said: Everything we do for children will bear fruit, affecting their entire lives and determining their futures.

Children are like young saplings; the nutrients parents provide will determine how they grow.

So, many parents say they want to give their children a higher starting point and a higher ceiling.

Even if they can’t be born in Rome, they should have the opportunity to see the world. And vacations are a great opportunity for parents to use their vision and foresight to teach children how to see the world. These low-cost activities might just help children see a different world, develop a good mentality, and good vision.