• Math tutors
• /
• Blog
• /
• Afterschool Enrichment Activities in 2024

Afterschool Enrichment Activities in 2024

Grades in math, English and other key subjects have been falling since the COVID-19 lockdown.

What’s more, teachers report that kids have been less engaged since the pandemic.

Afterschool enrichment activities are key to making sure kids don’t fall behind in school – especially if they aren’t fully engaged.

Here, we cover the best after-school enrichment activities for kids.

What is an enrichment class in middle school?

Middle school enrichment programs are designed to supplement school learning for kids. They enhance school learning by giving kids a deeper understanding of their favorite subjects – or the subjects they may struggle with.

Some schools deliver enrichment for kids to upgrade their standard curriculum. These programs are optional and offer parents the opportunity to expand their kid’s knowledge and cement their understanding of many subjects. 

If your kid’s school doesn’t offer enrichment classes, there are a number of enrichment activities you can do yourselves. Our article will cover many different after-school enrichment activities or programs to support your kid’s learning in middle school, as well as kindergarten, elementary school and high school.

Types of after-school enrichment activities

There are many types of afterschool enrichment activities that can support your kid’s learning. In this article, we’ll cover the following educational after-school enrichment activities and classes:

• Enrichment activities with Brighterly
• Summer camps
• After-school book clubs
• Competitive quiz clubs
• Paying for small items
• Gardening
• Arts and crafts
• Grow bacteria and watch it develop
• Sports activities
• Playing board games
• Coding classes
• Building straw bridges
• Cooking together
• Debate classes
• Music activities
• Teaching language through TV and TikTok

Enrichment activities with Brighterly

Brighterly offers a range of enrichment activities to support kids from kindergarten to grade 12 in their math learning. Our personalized one-to-one online tutoring will identify gaps in your kid’s knowledge to ensure they learn and understand key math concepts.

We’ve been teaching kids math for years. With Brighterly, they memorize math, understand the concepts, and learn how to apply them.  Our award-winning interactive programs are personalized to your kids and make math fun and engaging.

To further supplement their learning, we offer a range of fun worksheets that illustrate math concepts in a way that’s visually engaging and interesting – there’s no learning by rote or repetitive sums. Our worksheets are available by grade and also by types of math operation, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, measurements and fractions.

Enrichment activities throughout school

Academic enrichment activities

Academic enrichment activities allow kids to deepen their understanding of a subject. They can also be used to support students in subjects they’re struggling with. Academic enrichment activities can either be delivered at school as educational after-school enrichment activities and classes or at home.

Academic enrichment activity #1: Summer camps

Summer camps are a great way to prepare kids for their next grade and ensure their learning from the previous grade is cemented. It can prevent summer slide – where a prolonged break in learning, like summer vacation, can create gaps in a kid’s knowledge. It’s easy to forget what you’ve learnt when it isn’t reinforced regularly!

Brighterly’s summer camps offer academic enrichment for kids via experienced tutors and fun, game-based learning. Many kids don’t find school fun, but they’ll certainly find Brighterly’s summer camps amusing – and importantly, educational!

Academic enrichment activity #2: After-school book clubs

After-school book clubs are a great example of enrichment activities for kids. And if they love reading, it won’t even feel like extra learning! This is a great enrichment activity that can apply to kids and teens in all grades, from preschool up to grade 12. As kids progress through their grades, they’ll be given age-appropriate books to read.

Your kids can strengthen the following skills as part of a book club:

• Reading level
• Critical thinking skills
• Understanding hidden meanings
• Increasing vocabulary
• Improved writing skills
• Understanding problems 

Did you know that book clubs can also be used as math after-school enrichment? Math involves a lot of reading – especially when it comes to engaging in math-based word problems, which are a fun math activity. By being able to understand how questions are posed, kids can indirectly improve their math understanding! These afterschool enrichment activities upgrade skills beyond traditional reading and writing.

Academic enrichment activity #3: Competitive quiz clubs

Kids love a bit of competition. Participating in quiz clubs can streamline their learning for a range of subjects, including math, English, history and science. These enrichment activity examples will also bring out their competitive side in a healthy way.

Schools can host weekly quizzes for kids – basically, a kid-friendly version of bar trivia many of us love to attend! They can offer prizes for each week’s winner and create a leaderboard throughout the school year to award a final winner. You can also host quizzes at home with the whole family as a fun after-school student enrichment activity.

The great thing about quiz clubs is that they can be done in a range of formats, meaning kids and teens will never get bored. From question-and-answer rounds and music or video-based sections to interactive rounds, there’s plenty to keep kids engaged, entertained and educated.

Enrichment activities for kindergarten

In kindergarten, your kids will be introduced to some basic concepts in English, math and sometimes science. Their early-year education is critical to how they’ll perform throughout school, so enrichment activities for kids in kindergarten will ensure they’re learning at the right pace.

Enrichment activities for kindergarten #1: Paying for small items

When you go to the local shop with your kid, you can support them with basic math by allowing them to pay for a small treat themselves. For example, a bag of chips or a chocolate bar. In kindergarten, kids should be able to identify and use different coins and notes.

Letting them pay for their own little treats will help them add up small coins to the right amount, or learn to count their change if they pay with a note. As well as reinforcing basic math concepts, this math after-school enrichment will make your kid feel super grown-up!

Enrichment activities for kindergarten #2: Gardening

Gardening is a great enrichment activity that kids can start in kindergarten and continue throughout their school years, getting more advanced as they grow. It’s also a wonderful enrichment activity that’s rewarding, as they can see the (literal!) fruits of their labor. 

It’s important to start small. Teach your kids how to pot basic plants and flowers and how to water them. Then, as they gain confidence, you can teach them more challenging gardening activities like weeding, composting and mowing the lawn.

Make it even more fun by incorporating creative activities – let your kids decorate their own pots first to give them a creative outlet and let them feel like their work is totally their own. Your kids will enhance endless skills, including:

• Spatial awareness
• Hand-eye coordination
• Understanding how plants, flowers and food grow
• Measuring soil, water and plant food

It’s especially rewarding enrichment for kids as they can enjoy their fruits and vegetables once they’re fully grown!

Enrichment activities for elementary students

Student enrichment activities are essential at elementary school age when kids are starting to learn about a wider range of subjects. These activities will ensure they continue to learn at the right pace and deepen their understanding of a range of subjects.

Enrichment activities for elementary school #1: Arts and crafts

What elementary school kid doesn’t love an arts and crafts activity? It’s a tactile elementary enrichment activity that can set their imagination free and give them the space to be creative. As well as encouraging creativity, it can also enhance skills that are required in a lot of other subjects without them even realizing it.

Coloring in	Coloring or painting helps kids understand color theory, as well as spatial awareness – learning to color within the lines.
Working together on a project	When kids work together on arts and crafts projects, it builds teamwork and collaboration skills.
Coordination and fine motor skills	Some artsy tasks require precision – and this can help your kid improve their hand-eye coordination.
Understanding of measurements	Cutting and sticking together paper or other craft materials sometimes requires precise measurements – this is a great way to fine-tune a kid’s understanding of measurement.
Critical thinking skills	If a child has been given a task, such as creating a specific item or shape using craft materials, it can enhance their critical thinking skills as they solve this problem – these skills are essential in math, science and other core subjects.

Arts and crafts can be delivered as enrichment classes for elementary students during or after school.

Enrichment activities for elementary school #2: Grow bacteria and watch it develop

Kids will learn about a range of scientific topics in elementary school, and chances are bacteria growth will be on the list. You can reinforce this learning by growing bacteria as an afterschool enrichment activity.

All you’ll need are some petri dishes with agar and some cotton swabs to pick up the material you want to test for bacteria. Swab it into the petri dishes then watch over time as the bacteria grows and multiplies.

This is a great way to visualize some of the key information your kid will learn in school. Plus, as a bonus, it also works as math after-school enrichment. That’s because it reinforces multiplication by showing how quickly bacteria multiplies and grows.

Free enrichment activities for elementary students

The above elementary enrichment activities can be done for free if you already have the resources at home. But if you don’t and you’re looking for free enrichment activities for kids at elementary age, we have some below.

Free enrichment activities for elementary students #1: Sports activities

Playing sports is a really fun, free way to improve a lot of skills. Whether you play one-on-one games like catch with your kid, or they play bigger games with friends, they can enhance a lot of their school learning with sports.

Games like simple catch, or more challenging team games like football or basketball, are the best ways to improve their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Frisbee games can also teach kids measurement if you’re able to measure how far their throws go. The fun nature of sports makes them great enrichment activities for the kids.

Other skills, like math, can be improved with team sports too. Your kids can understand how to distribute teammates on a pitch using mathematical principles, or measure their performance – for example, the angle of their kicks or how fast they can run a certain distance. Sports are ideal elementary enrichment activities, and not only elementary.

Free enrichment activities for elementary students #2: Playing board games

If you already have board games at home, you can do this free afterschool enrichment activity. If not, many public libraries offer board games for free!

Board games are a wonderful enrichment activity that will not only enhance your kid’s learning but allow you to spend some quality time together. Monopoly is a perfect math after-school enrichment game – it teaches kids addition, subtraction and budgeting. Plus, studies have shown that three-to-nine-year-olds who play board games, including Othello and Monopoly, have better math skills!

Word-based games, including Scrabble, Boggle and Mad Libs are a great way to reinforce English learning and increase your kid’s vocabulary.

Enrichment activities for primary schools

Primary school is another term for elementary school. You’ll find similar enrichment activities for primary school students as you would for elementary school students.

Enrichment activities for middle school

Enrichment activities for middle school can be more challenging as they already understand more complex education concepts. 

Fun enrichment activities for middle school

Enrichment activities should be fun to keep middle school kids engaged. We have some fun middle school enrichment programs below.

Enrichment activities for middle school #1: Coding classes

Coding is a pivotal skill for the future and a great example of enrichment activities in middle school. Not all schools teach it as standard – only some states, including California, teach coding as a mandatory subject. Not only is it essential for the future workforce, but it’s also an excellent way to enhance learning in other subjects, including math.

Coding can easily be made fun – afterschool enrichment classes that teach coding often do so via the medium of game coding. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a game brought to life by your own work!

Kids can also learn how to draw with code and understand specific key coding languages, including Python, or via their favorite games like Roblox.

Enrichment activities for middle school #2: Building straw bridges

This is a great enrichment activity that teaches kids so many different skills and can uplevel learning in many areas. Kids are usually put together in teams for communication, teamwork and collaboration skills. They’re given straws and adhesive materials, including glue and tape, and are tasked with building the strongest bridge possible with the fewest resources.

Often, a cost will be attached to each item – for example, 10 cents per straw. This means as your kid goes about building a strong bridge, they’ll also gain skills in addition and budgeting. For a more advanced way of delivering this wonderful enrichment activity, you can teach kids about the different types of bridges, including suspension, beam and arch, so they can work out which option would be best for their bridge.

Enrichment activities for middle school #3: Cooking together

Cooking is another skill that will be essential for your kids as they grow up. As well as this, it can help them to learn and apply many principles that relate to other subjects. The best examples of enrichment activities for kids in cooking include measuring out ingredients to reinforce math and learning to time each stage. Cooking or baking a recipe that has many steps and ingredients can also teach your kids how to multitask and use their time efficiently.

As an added bonus, this can be a wonderful enrichment activity in high school too and will set your kid up well for college. Knowing how to make some essential healthy recipes will be vital when moving away to college. The need for budgeting will be essential at college too – your teens will need to weigh up cost-effective ingredients to make sure they fit into their student loan budget.

High school enrichment activities

In high school, many kids will be preparing to head off to college. Enrichment activities for kids in high school are key to ensuring your teen is well-prepared for their college education. These student enrichment activities will ensure they don’t experience a summer slide and can get their college education off to a flying start.

High school enrichment activity #1: Debate classes

By high school, your kid should be skilled in critical thinking and analyzing. A great way to reinforce these skills is by signing them up for debate classes. They’ll either be split into teams and assigned a topic to debate and a side to argue, or they’ll do this independently and debate with one other person. These enrichment activities for students will see teens debate social topics, such as:

• If the treatment of one country by another is fair and just
• Whether the government should provide aid to citizens – for example, free healthcare
• If drugs should be legalized
• How important climate change is and if governments need to do more

But debate class doesn’t have to be limited to social or political debates. You could debate current topics, such as:

• Is AI a threat to society?
• How important digital skills are to the workforce of the future
• How video games impact kids – are they a good or bad influence?

Debate classes enhance a range of skills, including public speaking, critical thinking skills, rationalization, listening and communicating. As your kid gets closer to college, these skills will be more important than ever.

High school enrichment activity #2: Music activities

Music is an optional subject in many schools, but if it isn’t in your teen’s school, why not use it as a great enrichment activity for the kids?

There are a lot of ways music can be used as an afterschool enrichment activity. You could test your kids by getting them to identify the chords in their favorite songs, or replicate their favorite hits on various instruments.

Playing an instrument naturally boosts hand-eye coordination and teaches rhythm and timing. Singing can be a great enrichment activity too, as it can expand your teen’s vocabulary and increase confidence. It’s an activity that will be fun for all kids and teens – everyone loves music!

High school enrichment activity #3: Teach languages through TV and TikTok

While it’s important to limit screen time for kids and teens, there’s no denying it’s what they enjoy doing. So use it to your advantage and turn it into an opportunity for learning. These enrichment activities for students won’t even feel like education!

If your high schooler is learning a language, they’ll be at an advanced stage by this point. By giving them time to watch their favorite TV shows, but dubbed in their language of choice, they’ll learn as they enjoy.

This goes for other forms of video content too, like TikTok. The platform encourages users to add subtitles to their videos, so by changing the language of the subtitles to their studied language, they can learn as they scroll.

Conclusion

Enrichment programs are essential for improving kids’ knowledge out of compulsory school education. As well as deepening their understanding of a range of subjects, they can also support kids struggling with particular subjects or concepts.

These are just some of the best examples of enrichment activities for kids that will enhance your kid’s learning throughout their time in education, all the way from kindergarten to high school.

These activities prove that learning doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, many fun after-school student enrichment activities, including Brighterly’s online math classes, tutoring and supporting worksheets, focus on making learning fun and engaging. These programs don’t always need to be academic enrichment activities – chores, sports and other hobbies support their education too.

Whether your kid’s school offers these afterschool enrichment activities or you carry them out at home, they’re sure to enhance their learning and boost their school grades.