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On this page you will find play ideas listed on the right For more ideas Click here Using your feet (more ideas)
___________________________________________________________________________ Our family had a card game called Memory. The players had to memorise the position of cards on the table in order to collect a pair with identical pictures. The cards were only turned picture up two at a time and then immediately turned down again. It wasn’t long before our children were winning every time. They seemed to have an extraordinary memory of where the pictures were. Memory games are easy to devise from the simplest objects and are useful in teaching the names of objects and to teach attention to detail. Here are some examples. For 2-3 year olds: Put three items under a cloth e.g. sox, a shoe, a hat. Adult removes one item and uncovers the others. Child then guesses what has gone. 3-4 year olds: Make a face with pieces of dough. When child hides eyes, adult removes one feature. Child names feature that is missing 4-5 year olds: Show child four pieces of fruit or vegetable. When child hides eyes, remove one item. Child names missing item. For a variation of the game, leave all items there but move the position of one while child is hiding eyes. Ask child to put things back where they were before. Ask child to remove an item or move the item while adult hides eyes. Children love to try to trick the adult. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This winter June and July have been extremely cold months in most parts of eastern Australia. Day after day it has been too cold or too wet for children to play outside except for short run-around times. The challenge for parents and child care workers is to keep kids occupied and to use up their physical energy while indoors. When I worked in a child care centre and we experienced weather like this, I brought some outdoor equipment inside. I set up an obstacle course around which children walked jumped, hopped, skipped climbed rolled and ran. This was set up as a warm up activity, and was closely supervised by all staff so that each piece of equipment was used safely. Equipment included
The activities were varied every few minutes to walking backward, sideways, bouncing, catching or rolling the ball, dividing the group into teams and making races of various kinds using different sizes of ball etc. to test children’s skills. When everyone was warmed up and feeling lively, the same equipment could be used to quiet the children down, by converting part of the area for imaginative play. A boat outlined with boxes or blocks could be approached by the gangplank (balance beam). Children could fish from chairs in the boat using rods with magnets attached while the hoops became pools for the fish. Children love to be involved in designing and arranging new play spaces. Child care educators have imaginative minds. Whether you are at home or in a centre, see what gross motor activities you can provide to stimulate your groups in the inclement weather. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doll houses are easy and great fun for children to make. A box of almost any size can be used. The outside of the box is easily painted by the child, using acrylic paints or cornflour paint coloured with vegetable dye. Inside the box, your child may like to cover the walls by pasting on attractive paper cut from magazines. Furniture such as beds, tables, and chairs can be made from small boxes, cotton reels, corks and small pieces of cardboard. Match boxes glued together make a wonderful chest of drawers. Dolls can be made from paper, paddle-pop sticks or pegs. Wrap the fabric around and either glue it on, or hold it in place with small elastic bands. Boys can make houses for action figures, castles for knights and royalty, caves for dragons or dinosaurs, or shops of every kind. Box houses are fun for the whole family. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When my boys were very young they were budding builders. They spent many hours with real hammers and nails joining bits of wood together to make wonderful contraptions that they used in their imaginative play. In pre-schools children are offered cardboard, paper, plastic lids, corks, paddlepop sticks, cotton reels and other odds and ends to attach to wood with either glue or nails. This kind of play is popular with girls as well as boys and is easy for parents at home to supply and supervise too. Full sized hammers are great as they have big heads, a necessity for beginning carpenters. The weight of a full sized hammer also helps a child to drive a nail into soft timber with a few blows. Children often use the hammer by holding it in both hands once the nail is upright in the wood. A strong workbench may be used in a centre, but my children used logs of wood as their benches, selected from the winter firewood supply. Nails must also have large heads. Pine wood is excellent as it is soft. Make sure it isn’t treated pine. It is best not to suggest a project for the children. They will be satisfied to have a lot of nails partly hammered into a block of wood. They will name what they have made and it may not look as an adult expects the object to be. Remember that it is the process of making, not the finished product, that is important. Always supervise play with tools if there is more than one child there. Demonstrate the use of the hammer. Children from two years will enjoy this and by age four, you’ll be surprised at what they make. Begin with a hammer only but later a saw may be added if the child asks for one. Danger is minimised if the children are taught safety rules. Hammering develops concentration, and eye-hand co-ordination as well as an imaginative spirit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buying toys for toddlers can be challenging. Many items that appear attractive, are labelled not suitable for children under three. The best toys for this age group are toys that encourage physical activity. Toddlers have almost unlimited energy. They love big or medium sized balls, sand moulds, buckets and spades, watering cans, large crayons, blocks, large paint brushes, toys to push and pull such as prams, wagons, barrows, brooms, mops, hobby horses, and ride-on toys. Ride-on toys are easy for the toddler to use if they are designed to be propelled by the feet when the child sits on the toy, rather than by using a pedalling action. Toddlers also enjoy opening and closing lids and carrying toys in baskets or bags. They can press buttons to produce sounds on musical toys and telephones and will spend lots of time using hammering toys. Dolls, teddies and other soft toys are popular but make sure they are easy for the child to handle and that arms and legs won’t come off. A good investment is a child-sized table and chair or a rocking horse. A good quality chair and table will last many years. The very young are quickly overwhelmed at Christmas by too many gifts. It may be better to buy one good quality more expensive gift, than many small, cheap items. Put away some of the gifts so that the child can play at length with a favourite one. Bring out the hidden gifts as the child needs more to play with. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In April 2008, the 20th world puppet Congress and World Puppetry Festival will be held in Australia for the first time. It will take place in Perth and puppeteers from all over the world will attend and give performances. This will be an exciting event and as part of the congress and festival, people are invited to send a million puppets to Perth. This is a great opportunity for children everywhere to make a puppet. At one of my local schools children have begun making puppets and I saw some of them yesterday. They were fascinating, exciting and wonderful. The children had each used a wooden spoon to make their puppet. The spoons are painted in vibrant colours and clothed in feathers, material, paper and wool. Hair and facial features were made from matchsticks, pipe cleaners, wool, buttons, seeds and other easily found items all glued on securely or held with tape. Another group of children at the same school has begun to make sock puppets. There is no right or wrong way to make a puppet. They can be as small as a finger puppet or as big as a giant. How about encouraging your children to make a puppet? Here is the address to which puppets can be sent. Million Puppet Project PO Box 832, Fremantle Australia 6959 Puppets must arrive before Friday, March 21st 2008. The Carnival begins on 6th April. Many puppets have already arrived. Look at this website to see some of the puppets. www.millionpuppets.com A puppet caravan will be giving performances as members travel across Australia on the way to Perth. Enquire about the caravan visiting your town at the following web address:www.puppetryaustralia.info/puppetcaravan/workshops After the festival, all the puppets will be sent to charities and schools where they will be loved and used by children. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While we all hope that our children will never be in a situation that requires rescue, it is helpful to have practised rescue situations. Fire evacuation procedures are practised at Child Care Centres but many procedures can be enjoyed as games while children are learning at the same time. Here are some game ideas: Rescue can be from
Chairs are useful as vehicles and ladders. Ropes and boxes can be put to multiple uses. Ice cream containers can be helmets. Blocks make handy instant mobile phones and soft toys can participate too. In the process children can be learning about wearing life jackets, what ambulance officers do to stabilise a patient, the correct thing to do when a snake is seen, and how to phone for help. A new initiative in schools and Early Childhood centres, is to teach children how to make emergency calls because more and more children have needed help in a variety of situations. Children also need to learn about stranger danger but first enjoy some of these exciting, creative games together. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whether your child is school age, a baby, toddler or pre-schooler, quiet, solitary play is a necessary part of every day. Baby needs time alone to just look at the surroundings and to touch toes, play with fingers and to babble and listen to his or her own voice. Children who are at school all day can be encouraged to spend some time playing alone in their room or outside after arriving home before playing with other children. Solitary play is a calming activity and is different from watching TV, as it means making their own entertainment or following their own interests. Suggestions are:
A short time alone refreshes everyone and will help prevent arguments amongst siblings if they then wish to join together for other games. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three year olds love to play hide and seek. They do not wait to be found but jump out almost immediately and are delighted when the adult seeking them shows surprise. Hiding objects is another way to play this game. Have three hiding places in a row such as a cup, a box and a cushion, or have three boxes, cups or cushions to act as the hiding places. The item to be hidden must be small enough to fit easily under the hide. The child and the adult can take turns to hide the object. Skills practised in this game are
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Making a book with your child can be fun for both of you. Begin with an activity book using photos. You are sure to have photos of holiday time or of special events such as a birthday or visiting grandparents or of games with the family pet. One photo can be mounted on each page in a spiral backed book with a simple caption under each. Spiral backed books are easy for a child to open and turn pages alone. Paper pages will last very well but you may want to use loose paper that can be slipped into the plastic sleeves of a document book. Simple excursions such as going shopping or to the town pool make ideal subjects. For example a going shopping book could have the following photos:
A four year old can help you to select the photos and decide what to write under the pictures. Older children would enjoy a project like this as a scrapbook of things they want to remember or as a book for a younger sibling. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Autumn is a lovely time of year where I live, with sunny days and glorious autumn foliage in the tree-lined streets. I can never resist picking up some of the leaves. Of course some of you may live in the tropics or in parts of the world where it is now spring. Wherever you are take a look at the trees in your environment and encourage some games with leaves. How many ways can your children think of using them? Here are ten physical gross motor movement ideas
Ten ideas for fine motor activities
Enjoy these activities with your child or group of children. If you think of more ways to use leaves, please send me an email. Click here to contact Helen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boys often choose to play quite different activities from girls outdoors, even at pre-school age. This is largely because adults encourage them in different ways and provide differently for them. However, outdoor play is an area where we can encourage cross-over gender play. Tricycles are a good beginning for both sexes. Prams or shopping trolleys are also good. Boys see plenty of men pushing them these days. Having said that, my daughter has hit a snag with her three year old daughter. She quickly mastered riding her bike and enjoyed the activity but now refuses to ride any more because she declares that Santa brought her a boy’s bike – it is red and blue. Girls’ bikes she insists, must be pink (or at least purple). What to do about this? My daughter is contemplating spray- painting the bike in her daughter’s favourite colour. Climbing games, camping, fishing, dancing and singing in pop-star style are also done by both male and female performers. I’m sure the Wiggles and Hi-Five have helped many boys to feel that singing and dancing are cool. Help your youngsters to re-enact holidays at the beach, the river or fishing and boating outings. If they haven’t had these experiences, make believe is a great way to introduce this type of play. Many ideas can be found in story books too. Try not to focus only on what has been deemed in the past, to be gender appropriate play. Our kids need broad horizons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ With the price of petrol skyrocketing, more families are considering the use of bicycles. Bike riding is an excellent fitness activity that can be shared by the whole family. It builds muscles, and helps develop strong lungs. Remember too that it is a carbon free activity so is helping our environment. In the past, the majority of children living in rural areas of Australia, would have cycled to school or a least had a bike to use at weekends. In the last twenty years, cars have really taken over our roads and our thinking. Parents run kids to
Parents should provide their kids with bikes of the right size and help them to keep bikes in good orde. Also provide training, helmets, other appropriate clothing, supervise learner riders, and keep encouraging the young riders. Children must not only how to ride but what the road rules are. Some schools offer bike clubs so kids can learn bike maintenance, rules, enter competitions, and have fun in a controlled and safe environment. Before riding alone on the roads, parents must assess their child’s competence. Remember that eyesight is immature before age 9 so younger children should be accompanied by an adult. How about some pressure on your local council to provide cycle tracks to the schools, to the shops and to the sporting fields? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It has been proved in research that newly born babies study patterns put within focus of their eyes. They prefer black and white images and like a simple face shape with eyes drawn on it. My daughter had prepared a couple of these images before her baby was born. She placed them either side of the bassinet. She also made simple toys for baby to reach for at about three months of age. The first toys that take a baby’s attention are ones that move and make a sound. Simple kitchen items are ideal. Across the pram or bassinet tie a cord to which you can tie small balls made by crumpling foil, or a small pie plate, a bunch of teaspoons, or little bells that will tinkle. Baby will like the bright silver and if it is within reach of his/her random arm movements, they will move enticingly. A balloon is also appropriate. At this stage baby will only be able to bat the objects, not catch hold of them so things that will later be unsuitable, are okay. Placing these objects so that baby can kick them will encourage vigorous kicking too. Look in your kitchen and see what simple things you can use to make an interesting environment for your baby --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teaching children to wash hands is one of the easiest skills to teach because they love playing in water. It seems almost impossible for a child to keep hands dry if there is water available for washing games. Water to play with can be made available indoors in a dish, or in the bathroom or kitchen. Outside it can be in a small bucket, a dish or watering can or the hose. It is only when washing hands delays some other enticing activity such as eating or getting on with a game after toileting, that children don’t want to bother with it. Encourage hand washing through washing-games in warm water by offering
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Runny noses are unfortunately one of the most eye-catching features of a child’s face but keeping the nose clean seems to be one of the hardest skills to teach. Children learn to sniff before they learn to blow. Teach blowing when the child is perfectly well without even the slightest sniffle. There are several steps:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is that time of year when retailers put a great deal of effort into attracting the attention of children with the expectation that they will put pressure on adults to purchase the latest, most desirable toys. Children have little understanding about finance until they are into their teens, and many even then seem to still think that parents have unending supplies of it. Do your shopping when the children are not tagging along, so you can avoid requests. Even pre-schoolers are not too young to be told that there s not enough money to buy certain things. If your finances are stretched this year, what can you do to fill the Christmas stockings?
Think back to your own childhood when the electronic devices of today were not available and choose things you liked. See how inventive you can be and have fun along the way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jigsaw puzzles have always been available in child care centres but do you have some at home? There are bright, interesting puzzles now at very reasonable prices to cater for children from eighteen months onwards. While wooden puzzles will be stronger, cardboard puzzles will last well too. For the youngest children, choose puzzles with simple inset shapes so that the cut out shape closely resembles the animal or object that fits in the space. These puzzles will have only a few pieces. The next type of puzzle often has a cut out shape too and will have several pieces to complete the picture. It may be of a person, an animal or some familiar object. All of the pieces will be relatively big so they are easy for the child to grasp and recognise as part of the picture. For four year olds there are many puzzles that relate to TV characters or familiar scenes. There may be a lot of pieces and a picture included to show the finished scene. Children need to be taught skills if they are to master jigsaws and enjoy the activity. Sit with your child and help to work it out. It is best not to tip the picture out but to take pieces out individually so that the mind focuses on the relationship of each piece to the next. Teach your child how to recognise the edge pieces, how to sort out the colour groups, how to look at the shapes of the individual pieces and how to turn them around until they fit. Jigsaws help children to
These skills will help with literacy and with mathematics, both important parts of life. Incomplete puzzles are unsatisfying so make some rules about where jigsaws can be done, what to do with a completed puzzle and where they can be kept. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Children are fascinated by magnets. They are cheap to buy at hardware stores and you can make games easily. Games 1. Sorting things that a magnet can lift. Collect a range of small objects including wood, plastic, glass, metal, paper and fabric. Give the child two paper plates on which to sort them – one plate for objects that will stick to the magnet and the other plate for those that won’t stick. 2. Paper boats Make paper boats and put some paper clips in each. Float the boats in a dish of water. Make the boats sail along by holding the magnet against the side of the dish and moving it around. 3. Counting How many paper clips or nails can the magnet hold at one go? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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