A Hertfordshire teacher has shared her top seven tips on how to avoid the "summer slide" by keeping your children entertained, engaged and learning over the summer.

Clare Shaw, founder and teacher at Mini Mozart, which offers music classes for babies and toddlers, said: "It’s important for children to have a complete break over the summer holiday, but there are ways in which you can keep their brains engaged without them noticing."

The mum and ex BBC Proms presenter continued: "Music can be used to help your child to develop the skills they needs for school readiness.

"I’m not just referring to learning intellectual skills, like reading and writing, but music can also help your child to develop fine motor skills, language skills, memory skills and social skills, plus qualities such as confidence, curiosity, discipline and respect."

Clare's top seven tips to keep your child entertained this summer:

Homemade musical instruments

Get your child involved in sensory play. Sensory play activates and stimulates a child’s senses. These senses are how children learn about the world around them and make sense of the new things they’re experiencing each day.

Sensory play builds observational skills and abstract thinking and encourages experimentation. It’s excellent for helping to calm a child who may be feeling anxious or angry.

To get started you could encourage your child to make their own musical instruments. They can make drums using pots and spoons, or maracas with dried beans and a paper cup, or a guitar from an empty tissue box and some rubber bands. 

Sound tubes can be made using an empty paper towel roll filled with uncooked rice or beads and secured at the end with fabric or tape. Your little one will delight in the process of making the toys, as well as hearing the different noises they make.

Express yourself

Songs provide an outlet for children to express themselves. Through music, children can externalise and process feelings.

This helps to promote emotional intelligence and self-regulation, key skills for wellbeing and development. One simple and fun game to encourage your child to express themselves involves calling out a song (eg Old Macdonald Had a Farm, or If You’re Happy and You Know It) and an expression (eg hop like a bunny, scurry like a mouse, or clap) to show you’re happy.

Action and movement songs encourage children to move their bodies. They help to develop fine and gross motor skills and enhance hand-eye coordination.

Musical arts and crafts

Give your child some arts and crafts activities while listening to music. Music and rhythm can help to enhance memory retention in children. Songs that incorporate educational themes such as alphabet, numbers and colours make it easier for pre-schoolers to remember complex information.

A trip around the world

Experience the world together through music, while teaching your child to be a better listener. Find folk songs and traditional musical styles from different countries and regions, and listen to the songs together.

Talk about what you like, what you hear, how you feel, and what the words in the songs mean.

Dancing games

Turn on some fun music and encourage your pre-schooler to dance. When you pause the music at random times, your child should stop and 'freeze', holding whatever position they're currently in. This game is great for building a child’s concentration, listening and balancing skills.

Work up a sweat with a dance competition

Get some exercise with your pre-schooler while you challenge each other to make up the funniest/happiest/saddest/highest/lowest/fastest/slowest dance moves in accordance with what song is playing.

Sing together

Incorporating songs into your daily routine supports language development. Through repetitive listening and singing, children are exposed to a range of vocabulary and linguistic structures, helping them to comprehend and use new words.

Rhythmic patterns in songs also help with pronunciation and intonation, so expose your child to melodies by singing often. 

Even if you don’t think you have a good voice, sing along to your favourite playlist.

Turn the grocery list into a song by singing it to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Sing your instructions to your child with any melody that pops into your head. Try it and see how this will help your child develop memory skills and confidence.