If you are working from home or now have children at home due to lockdown restrictions, you may be experiencing the effects of having bored or cooped up children. At Child’s Play ELC, if you can’t bring your child to our centre, we don’t want you or your children to be getting frustrated in your household. Here are some activities you can do with your child at home and how these activities will benefit their learning.
Activity: Baking and Cooking
Learning Areas: Maths, Creativity, Tastes, Cause and Effect Relationships.
Baking a cake, making pizzas or other fun treats is a great way to encourage your child to learn about food and healthy choices, and it is a perfect activity for when you are stuck at home. Any type of cooking allows you to explore food in particular: different flavour combinations, colours and textures and encourages them to try new things. It is also a great way to be practically creative as you can get your child to use the flavours or toppings for their pizza dough or bake a cake with an unusual texture, flavour or decoration.
Activity: Arts and Crafts
Learning Areas: Creativity, Awareness, Expression of Self.
Arts and crafts, whilst may seem messy, are actually a great way to get your child to express themselves creatively. You can make slime, take photos, or build things with Lego and building blocks. You don’t even necessarily have to set a task, just get some paper and pencils out and ask them to draw you a picture. These types of activities are limitless and are also great ways to see how they perceive the world, so make sure to ask questions about their new creation.
Activity: Writing Stories and Letters
Learning Areas: Literacy Skills, Expression of Self, Imagination.
When stuck at home, encourage writing to improve their literacy and communication skills. It can be as simple as asking them to write a letter to a friend or a grandparent and telling them about their day. If your child is a little bit older, ask them to write you a story about something they love. These activities will allow for their imagination to flow, and you will be able to help by introducing them to new words and concepts (and delivering the letters).
Activity: Physical Activity
Learning Areas: Hand-eye coordination, Physical and Emotional Wellbeing.
There are a number of physical activities you are able to undertake while being stuck at home. Many educators have jumped on Youtube and created PE classes and dance routines for kids. You can even find child mindfulness and yoga if you wanted a calming activity as well. Being active has many benefits for both you and your child, in particular, they will be able to continue growing and develop cognitive skills, including hand-eye coordination. But most importantly, being active will improve their emotional wellbeing and reduce the chances of your child having mood swings or being irritable. You may need to burn off some of their energy too.
Activity: Word Games
Learning Areas: Cognitive Development and Literacy Skills.
There are many different word games, including reading bingo and the association game, but all of these games will help improve their literacy skills and cognitive abilities. Whilst Reading encouraging your child to find words within one of their favourite books. The association game increases their perceptive skills as you and your family could choose a topic and list one to two worded answers until you run out, say animals in the jungle. These activities are designed for children to think and communicate their understanding of words and help you understand their perceptions.
Activity: Gardening
Learning Areas: Understanding the World, Cause and Effect Relationships, Creativity.
With lockdown being in Spring it’s the perfect time to plant new things and be working in the garden. If you have an outdoor space, setting up a flower garden or a veggie and herb garden with your kids is a great way for them to see how the world works and grows. This will spark their curiosity which you will be able to back up with videos, reading material and personal experiences. The outcome of this activity is that your child will be able to pick the flowers or vegetables you have grown and appreciate and get excited about each stage of growth. You might also be able to include these grown ingredients into cooking with your child.
Activity: Past Times
Learning Areas: Creativity, Maths, Expression of Self.
At Childs Play, we know that lockdown is not something that anyone has ever experienced before but now is a better time than ever to introduce your kids to activities that you used to enjoy as a child. It can be anything from balloon volleyball to making homemade playdough, your child will love these activities just as much as you enjoyed them as a child. Additionally, these activities were often established by childhood educators and have hidden benefits, including counting upwards, creativity, imagination, and social skills.
Finally, it’s ok.
Remember lockdown is hard for everyone and it’s ok if you or child are not as efficient or motivated when you are cooped up. These activities are here to help spark some inspiration about what you can do in your home to keep things fun. At Child’s Play, we encourage all types of learning including using technology and playing outside if you want to learn more about Child’s Play education format please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
