#8WeekStreak: Dubai's KHDA launches fun summer challenge for children and teachers

Each week has a creative theme for participants to join in with at home

Art, cooking and music are just three of the themed weeks in KHDA's #8WeekStreak programme. Unsplash

The summer holidays have begun. After more than three months of homeschooling, parents are now tasked with keeping little ones busy, without a curriculum.

However, Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has launched a social media challenge, the #8WeekStreak, which will certainly fill a few hours spent at home.

Each week is themed, starting with music week (from Sunday, July 5, until Saturday, July 11), followed by cooking, science, fitness, invention, rap, art and new skills weeks. The challenge takes children, teachers and parents up to Saturday, August 29.

All participants have to do is take photos or videos of themselves and little ones taking part in the challenge, and post them to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

"Not TikTok though [because] we're boomers [and] value our attention span," the KHDA's quick-witted Twitter account clarifies.

Cooking is the theme of week two of the KHDA's #8WeekStreak, from July 12 to 18. Unsplash

Each week, four photos or videos will be shortlisted, and social media followers will vote for a winner. The education authority has given suggestions for tasks to complete each week.

During music week they recommend playing an instrument or singing a song; come cooking week and science week they want to see children preparing their favourite foods and trying experiments, respectively. For fitness week, keeping active and healthy at home is the name of the game; while invention week encourages the little ones to come up with a new gadget or service. "[It] doesn't have to be perfect, this isn't Shark Tank," KHDA clarifies.

Week six will be rap week, when the KHDA wants children to make up a rap, either based on a poem by a favourite author or one they have written themselves; art week can hone in on absolutely anything creative, be it painting, pottery, photography or design.

The challenge ends with new skills week, when participants can show off any talents they have picked up of late, with gardening, breakdancing and new languages all suggested.