Summer holidays and lockdowns make it difficult to get out and make the most of the weather or the facilities in your area. It can leave you having to find ways to amuse, children at home. Of course, the biggest issue is that children generally have short attention spans. In other words, you need what feels like a hundred activities just to get through one day!
The good news is that you can use this time to boost their education, you simply need to find educational and fun activities, it is easier than you think. You should note that reputable childcare centers, such as this early learning Chatswood, will be happy to give you additional inspiration. This also ensures you are in keeping with their current teaching practices.
If you are struggling, here are some great fun and educational activities for your children to enjoy.
The Word Game
You’ll need a plate with the letters of the alphabet written around the edge. You will also need word endings, preferably just two letters. You can write these on small pieces of card and attach them to the back of the paper plate or you can just keep these separate.
Your child spins the plate and reads the letter when it stops. They then pull out word endings from a bowl until they get one that matches. It’s good practice at putting words together and sounding them out. But, the combinations that occur are also funny.
Make the Stars
Most young children have an interest in the stars. You can get creative with them and help to recognize and learn the constellations by building them together with pipe cleaners. It is simple, makes no mess, and is fun.
Paper Blocks
Children generally learn to build with wooden blocks but you can use paper! Get your children to help you fold pieces of paper into different shapes and stack them to see which is better at holding weight. The best design can get a treat, encouraging them to get involved.
Treasure Hunt
This is a little like hide and seek but your children are searching for treasure and have clues to help them find it. You can create as many written or picture clues as you like to keep your children busy. In the end, they get a treasure but they will also have been working their brains right the way through.
Remove The Object
This is a great memory game that stimulates young minds. Simply place a dozen things on a tray and show your child the tray. Given them 20-30 seconds to memorize the items then, cover the tray, secretly remove one, and show them the tray again.
All they have to do is tell you what is missing.
Adding Box
Make math fun by attaching two tubes to a piece of cardboard and putting it in a box. You can then tell your children two numbers to add up. They put pompoms in the tubes to match the numbers they are adding up. They can then count the pompoms in the box to get the answer.
This is just a few of the ideas that you can use, the only limit is your imagination!