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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)
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Make footprints by stepping onto
cement with wet feet and play 'whose footprint is this?'
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Pick up a variety of items with
the toes. e.g., pencil, money, books cards, plastic items, socks, cones,
stones, leaves
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Try holding a pencil or texta in
the toes then write with it.
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Wriggle toes individually
instead of all together.
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Do foot painting: it’s as much
fun as finger painting. Make paint by mixing a heaped tablespoon of
cornflour with ½ cup of cold water to mix easily. Add 1 ½ cups of almost
boiling water and stir over heat until it thickens. Colour with food
colouring. Cool thoroughly before using the paint. Lay several large
sheets of butcher’s paper on a cement path. Children can step into tray
of paint then step onto paper and spread paint around by moving their
feet.
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Memory
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.
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Indoor
ideas for bad weather
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.
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Dolls’
houses
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.
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Woodwork
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.
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Toys
for toddlers
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.
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Puppets
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.
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Rescue Games
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.
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Quiet games
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.
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Hide and
seek
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
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using fingers to pick up small
objects
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learning not to peep,
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not telling anyone which is the
hiding place
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moving the objects quietly
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concentration
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Make a book
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:
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child waiting beside the car
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sitting in child-seat with
seatbelt done up
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leaving the car park on arrival
at shopping centre
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sitting in the shopping trolley
or helping to push it
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shots of different isles
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selecting some of the food
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loading supplies into the car
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meeting a friend
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the pet greeting you on arrival
home
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having refreshments after
arriving home
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.
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Play with leaves
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
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rake up a big pile of leaves
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wheel them in a barrow
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put them in a box with soft toys and attach a rope
to pull them along
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dance with leaves to music
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jump on a pile of leaves then roll in them
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throw handfuls into the air
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lie down under a carpet of leaves
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make a huge sandcastle and decorate it with leaves
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climb a tree to pick leaves
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thread leaves on a string and make a kite to run
with
Ten ideas for fine motor activities
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arrange leaves in rows or in squares
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arrange leaves according to their shape, colours,
sizes
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count leaves
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draw them, put them under wax paper and iron them
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do leaf rubbings to discover their structure
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stick them to cardboard or paper, put them between
sheets of contact, trace around them
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arrange them in a basket
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use them as plates for doll food
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wrap food snacks in edible leaves, collect as many
leaves as you can that are edible
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wear a blindfold and name the leaves just by touch,
classify the leaves according to feel – are they furry, prickly,
smooth, bubbly etc.
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
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The great Outdoors
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.
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Cycling
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
We re addicted to the motor vehicle and to getting to
places in the fastest time with the least effort.
Actually, bike travel is often faster than car travel. Riding a bike demands
a responsible attitude of both adults and kids.
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?
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Toys for young babies
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
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Hygiene games – 1) water
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
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Hygiene games 2)
nose blowing
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:
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Encourage your child to taken deep breaths in and
out through the mouth and to feel the warm air escape when breathing
out. Taking a big breath through the nose is harder to teach. Demostrate
it, exaggerating the actions by encouraging the child to breathe in
through the mouth, close it tightly, then breathe out through the nose.
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Practise with child every day until the skill is
established. Your child can hold a feather under the nose to see how it
flutters as breath comes out.
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Collect a number of almost weightless items such as
feathers, dandelions, pingpong balls, polystyrene balls, and coloured
threads or tiny ribbons.
Have a
blowing competition. Can you blow a feather or table tennis ball across
a table using just the breath from the nose?
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Fulfilling kids
wishes
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?
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look
for second hand toys and books in good condition
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team up with grandparents, aunts
and uncles to buy one item of good quality rather than a number of
smaller items
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collect things that will enable
children to make their own craft items
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look at markets
as they
are a great place to pick up bargains
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go through your cupboards and
look for things that you don’t need. There are bound to be things there
that would delight a child – a little vase, a cup and saucer, a
magnifying glass, a little teapot and strainer that you haven’t used for
years, nails, screws, a screwdriver
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kids love
tiny items that can be used for sorting e.g.
buttons, beads, pretty stones, shells, cards, pencils
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boys love nails, screws and
tools they don’t have to be new
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small boxes that jewelry came in
delight little girls to put their own treasures in
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paper
dolls are a great idea. Trace some outlines from colouring books and cut
them out of cardboard. You can use photos of your child's face to paste
onto a drawn body. Provide coloured paper scraps or thin material scraps
so children can dress the figures themselves.
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.
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Jigsaws
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
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see relationships
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look at details
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follow instructions
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concentrate.
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.
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Magnets
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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Nature safari
There are more insects in
the world than there are of any other living
species yet apart from bees, butterflies
mosquitoes and flies, how many insects can your
children recognize? Children are more likely to
name sharks, dolphins, native animals, and wild
exotic animals they have seen in the zoo or on
TV, than the insects that live in their own
gardens and local parks. Insects are as amazing
as dinosaurs. Why don't you plan a nature safari
for your children? Wear hats and take drinks and
snacks in your back pack and go into the garden
or to a park. A breakfast safari would be fun
early one morning as the sun will be catching
dew-sprinkled spider webs. Tiny spiders can be
found then in leaf curls, the web hung between
bushes. Later in the day these webs are not easy
to see. With spiders, the idea is to see,
not catch.
You will need a clear
plastic drink bottle or other plastic container
as a bug catcher. Cut the narrow neck off the
drink bottle and secure a piece of panty hose or
net as a cover, with a rubber band. If possible
take a butterfly net too. It is necessary to
teach children to look at, rather than
touch the insects they see, as many sting or
bite. Beetles are particularly interesting and
many are robust enough for children to touch if
shown how to do so safely. A magnifying glass
helps children to count legs, look at mouth
parts, see how the shell is folded over the
wings etc. Encourage children from four to eight
to draw the creature they have captured before
letting it go again. Older children will be able
to record their specimens in photos and keep
records of the number and kind of insects, and
where they were found.
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Museum Games
1.Dinosaurs
fascinate children. Not every child has the opportunity to go to a museum to
see real dinosaur bones but it is easy to set up an interactive bone display
using equally interesting bones purchased from a butcher, a fisherman or
ones found in bushland or even along the roadside. Some weeks ago, on an early
morning walk, I saw a dead bird on the roadside. After some weeks only the
fragile bones remained. Children would have been interested in them. If you
resort to bones that are still covered with meat, you will need to prepare
them for your display by boiling them well. Make sure that no smell lingers
either. Teeth come in different sizes and shapes as well as leg bones and
are fascinating.
Children can be encouraged to
-
place
bones on the floor in different arrangements and to name their own dinosaur
-
dig for fossils in the sandpit where you have buried bones for them to find
-
build a body out of dough to cover
the bone of a cuttlefish
-
choose a bone and draw the creature they think it
belonged to.
2.Clothing
In Maisy Goes to the Museum, Maisy dresses as an Egyptian and Cyril
as a Knight. You could improvise capes, gowns, jewels and crowns for Kings
and Queens.
3. Toys
Many families have toys stored away from their childhood. These would be
excellent in museum games e.g. cars, blocks, dolls, marbles. Show children
how to handle objects with care.
4. Cupboards Look at the back
of the kitchen cupboards, for long forgotten items that will be strange to
modern children. E.g. graters, egg poachers, jaffle irons, toasting forks,
teapots. These would be good to compare with things currently in use. Older
children can make labels or put numbers on the items.
Once started on a museum theme,
games will suggest themselves.
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Make the most
of autumn
Where I live, it has been a long,
sunny autumn with brilliantly coloured trees this year. I cannot resist the
urge to pick up leaves in the street and pin them on the message board in
the kitchen. Children love autumn leaves too. Why not put some in your
child’s room until they curl up and fall. Encourage children to look for
them when going driving or shopping and to pick up some too. Before the
weather is too cold water and leaves combine well in outdoor games. Kids
will love to:
-
float leaves in the bath or
dishes of water
-
float leaves on creeks, rivers
or puddles
-
use leaves in cooking games
-
rake up leaves
-
stick them on paper with paint
or glue
-
help you put them in the compost
heap
-
spread them on gardens as mulch
-
use them in early mathematics
for counting games
-
sort them into shapes and sizes
-
use them instead of toy animals
or people in stories.
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Food memory game
My granddaughter has just discovered
the memory game my own children enjoyed so much. She is already very good at
remembering the positions of the cards. Memory cards are easy to make so I
suggest making a set of fruit and vegetable cards. They must all be the same
size and be backed with the same colour of cardboard so that when they are
placed face down there are no clues to the pictures on them. Use the
internet to find free clip art symbols to print and paste on each pair of
cards. If you don’t have a colour printer, get the kids to help colour in
the pictures or use instead pictures from magazines.
Players take turns to turn over two
pictures. If the cards match, the player keeps those cards and has another
turn. If the cards don’t match the next player takes a turn, turning over
the same card if he thinks he knows where the matching card is. The winner
is the player with the most pairs of cards when play stops.
As the children become familiar with
the names of the foods, they will be interested in looking for them in the
shops. The next step is buying and tasting them.
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Board games.
Pre-schoolers are ready to play
board games but they all want to win. In order to prevent disappointment,
tears or anger, the best idea is to find co-operative or team games, or
adapt games so that they continue till everyone reaches home. Even
snakes and ladders can be adapted. Here is a suggestion for a group game.
The dice is thrown by each child in turn around the circle. The object is to
build a tower of blocks. For each number thrown, a block is placed to build
a tower but when a snake is encountered, two blocks comes off, when a ladder
is encountered, two blocks go on. The height of the tower will be a matter
of pride to all.
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I’ve just found a wonderful new
website called Kids Craft Weekly. Every two weeks Amber’s newsletter
suggests educational, cheap, fun craft activities for children that she has
created with her two small children. This week she suggests Advent
activities that centre on fun things to do instead of on eating chocolates
as in bought Advent calendars. The easy-to-follow instructions she gives are
illustrated by photos and you are bound to come up with many of your own
ideas once you are started. The simplest idea is to write activity ideas on
strips of coloured paper and joint the strips up to make a paper chain.
Every day one link is removed and the activity inside is followed.
Activities range from going out for a picnic lunch, to placing a gift under
a Christmas tree in the local shopping centre, or making cards or twenty
other things children like to do as Christmas approaches. Here is the link
http://kidscraftweekly.com/
The website is full of wonderful
things to do during the holidays so find the link and explore it.
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Wet weather in the holidays
On 27th December the rain
really set in at my place. Many of the outback towns had already become
flood bound and now the coastal towns will be inundated. My town is on the
northern highlands of NSW and in town the creek will have cut the town in
two. I live 22 klms from town and overnight the dams which were bone dry
have filled and the tanks are overflowing. We had 201 mls of rain and it is
still drizzling. The road just a kilometre further on, is closed by an
overflowing creek and all those families will be cut off from shops. Kids
who got outdoor toys for Christmas will be frustrated but those with indoor
ones will give them a work over.
Make a flood game.
This game will fit in with events.
Kids can use real water if you are happy for a bit of a mess. Spread plastic
first to protect the floor or if you have a verandah area set up there. Make
a town scene with bridges that collapse, using paper for the river. A farm
scene is lots of fun too with some dishes of water representing dams and
plastic animals. Crumple paper to make hills to which animals can be moved
as the rain falls and the water level rises. Use blocks for the home and
dolls for the family. If you have no dolls, make people from pegs, spoons or
cardboard rolls that we usually recycle. Kids can even draw people on paper,
cut them out and stand them up using cardboard flaps. Making the game and
playing it will take a whole day or more. Perhaps boats or helicopters will
have to rescue people from rooftops. Once you start the kids off they’ll use
their imaginations to contrive all kinds of situations.
If you live in the northern
hemisphere, you could still have a flood game or it may be a snow game.
There has been lots on our TVs about the enormous snow falls that have been
dumped in cold places. Kids would have wonderful fun using cotton wool bits
for their snow.
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Shops
Kids really love shopping games so
why not organise a shopping game that will help you tidy up at home? It is
easy to organise the following clothing shops, shoe shops, toy shops,
grocery shops, cooking ware/ saucepan shops, book shops.
Give your child permission to take
everything out of the cupboards or off the shelves from the selected
category. While the storage areas are empty, you can dust them or wipe them
down. Children like to sell as well as buy so between you shopping bags will
soon be filled. When it is time to put the items away, you’ll find that it
doesn’t take long to sort and fold the clothes and put them away in neat
fashion. Older children can soon get the idea of putting tins of food into
lines on the shelves and stacking saucepans inside each other.
From shopping games children can
learn
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Messy play
Parents see paint, mud, water, even
food, in a different way from their children. A baby given a piece of toast
will make a real mess, smearing it all over face, hands, clothes and the
high chair. We expect this, but by the time that baby has grown into a
pre-schooler, the same behaviour isn’t acceptable. Pre-schoolers still like
to explore things through the hands and we should provide them with the
chance to get messy. Not everyone can have a sand pit in their home but
there are other things right in your kitchen that can be great fun. Put a
plastic sheet or some newspaper on the floor so the area will be easy to
clean up, or give the child a table that is an appropriate height.
Lentils and dry pasta
Let your child empty a packet of
lentils or dry pasta into a baking dish or a bowl. Encourage him/her to let
them flow through his/her fingers. Children love to pour lentils and pasta
from one container to another. They make a good sound in plastic and in
metal containers. Small toys like cars or plastic animals are fun to play
with at the same time.
Goop
Empty a packet of cornflour into a
bowl or a flat container like a cat litter tray. Let your child pour a jug
full of water over it then mix it with the hands. It feels silky and drips
off the fingers in a fascinating way.
Cooked potatoes
Boil potatoes, cool them, and cut
into quarters. Put them in a bowl and give your child a small jug of milk or
water to add, and the masher. The mashed potatoes can be part of your
child’s lunch.
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Playing with leaves
With autumn here, there are lots of
leaves falling. Leaves are one of the loveliest of nature’s gifts and can be
use in so many ways.
Why not set up a shop area at pre-school or at home
using leaves? Leaves can be
Leaves are excellent for teaching colours,
counting, and sorting into shapes.
Combine buying and selling leaves with
craft activities for your child such as
-
threading leaves on lengths of wool
-
tracing around leaves
-
spattering over them with toothbrush dipped in paint
-
pasting onto paper or pressing onto contact paper
-
ironing them between pieces
of waxed paper.
Children love to rake and sweep too
so will be in their element raking up leaves on the lawn or sweeping the
steps or patios. Help them to spread the leaves on gardens or put them into
the compost.
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Cooking together.
Children love to do things with
their parents and cooking together is something that you can do regularly.
Cooking with your child doesn’t have to be time set aside for making a
special recipe. There are many jobs in food preparation that children will
love helping with such as
Older
children can slice soft vegies such as zucchinis and cucumber, butter bread,
oil or grease the pans. Reluctant eaters are often encouraged to try
new foods when they help with the preparation. If your child has a sweet
tooth, balance preparation of special treats with preparing healthy foods.
Take some photos of your child helping with the cooking. These can be used
as story cards. Take three pictures of the stages of the cooking of lasagne.
Take a fourth picture of the family eating it. Ask your child to put the
pictures in the right order and tell you what each one is about.
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Sand fun
Sand is a wonderful medium for kids
to use. In no time they can make hills and valleys, roads and tunnels, even
buildings. They can use it wet or dry and sculpt it in many ways. Here in
cold New England, back yards and playgrounds are still mostly bare and brown
but the wattle trees are in full bloom and cheer the soul. Blossom trees and
spring flowers are weeks away but the sand pit can be used to bring spring
early. Kids can transform it into a miniature garden very easily with
sprigs of wattle, gum tree leaves, and other leaves from around the garden.
Coloured snips and scraps from magazines can be used to put colour into the
miniature landscape as flowers or butterflies and birds. Let the kids take
their plastic farm animals into the sand pit too or help them make clay
creatures. Rocks and stones can be added too. Help them to make paddle pop
or peg people clothed in bright strips of paper or fabric. These are easy to
stand in the sand too. As they make their sandscape, the kids are practising
fine motor skills, learning about the qualities of sand, plants and colours,
and smelling the different things they are using. These are wonderful
learning opportunities.
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Using Music
Music is everywhere
nowadays but instead of just having it in the
background, use it to promote activities. Choose
music to explain feelings to children. for
example, a bright piece of music in quick tempo
will help you to talk about happiness, or a
slower piece of music to talk about more serious
things. Here are some other ideas:
-
To cheerful music,
encourage kids to make bright paint patterns
on paper
-
Make arms, hands,
fingers dance to the rhythm
-
Select calm, quiet
music to calm children at the end of the day
and talk about how that music makes you
feel.
-
Help kids to select
music that is exciting, stirring, loud,
aggressive, unsettling, sad, frightening or
frustrating.
-
Help kids to express
these feeling in drama or mime, dance,
painting and clay manipulation.
-
Music can also be used
for routines such as bathing, hanging out
the washing, ironing the clothes and putting
away the toys.
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More water
In all the coverage of the floods
there was much mention about the floods of 1974 and that reminded me of a
Save the Children Fund pre-school I heard about at that time. It was in a
small community that was cut off for months. The teacher reported how the
children’s games changed to be all about building levees and moving stock to
higher ground and using boats to get around. The isolation went on for so
long that a helicopter was finally used to take some of the older children
to Lightening Ridge for school. As communities have grown so much in the
last 37 years a lot more people have been affected by the recent floods, and
the amazing spread of water over so many hundreds of kilometres that is
still happening. Television has taken pictures into all our homes and I’m
sure that school age children in particular have learnt a lot about the
properties of water. Along with the terror and devastation there is the
blooming of life in the desert for the second year in a row. Water birds are
breeding and stock has an abundance of feed after at least ten years of
drought. Children in outback homes have water to swim in. Some of those
children had never seen a river or a full dam before. Imagine their
excitement. Imagine the new way those kids will be playing. Perhaps kids in
other areas of the country can use clay to sculpt a landscape with dry river
beds and animals, then slowly add water to see how the model changes and
what will have to be done to keep the homestead dry and the animals safe.
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Bed time
Bed time is a great time to read or
to tell a story. I heard a variation of this recently. Each night the parent
hid a small item under the child’s pillow for the child to find. The story
was then a sharing of the significance of the item. This variation of
show and tell that is so popular at schools and child care centres, is great
for bedtime at home. Encourage your child to ask questions about the item
and also to contribute ideas about it. For example a train ticket could
remind you
-
of a family holiday or one you
had as a child
-
of the time you missed the train
-
about a book of trains
-
about a train set in a shop
window
-
the size of freight trains, the
noise they make and where they come from etc.
Another variation would be to have
items in a small bag and your child pulls out an item just from feel and
then the story is about that item. Model animals or pictures could also be
in a bag or a box. The child selects one and then you both use an
encyclopedia to increase your knowledge.
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Snails
Children are always fascinated by
creatures that are alive. After telling a story about a tadpole recently, I
took some tadpoles into the centres for the children to look at. I’d spent
quite a lot of time catching them for although there were a number in my
pool, they are hard to catch. It was worth the trouble to hear the children
talk about them.
Since then, I’ve seen a display of
snails set up for children to examine. I’m sure all children are fascinated
by these creatures and they are much easier to catch than tadpoles. A fair
number of snails were under a transparent dome with fresh leaves on the base
for food. This gave children an excellent way of viewing both the underside
of the snails as well as their shells. Snails were clinging to the plastic
as well as creeping along. There were also good sized pictures of snails
displayed near by so encouraging comments about the different sizes and
types of snails.
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Start a story
A week of wet weather sends us all
looking for ideas to keep children occupied. Here is an idea to start a story.
See what the children imagine will happen next. Record their ideas and
change the story each day. They could draw pictures for each version too.
Once upon a time there was a King
who hated rain. “Everyone stop working, stop playing, and stop eating until
the sun comes out again," shouted the king.” The people got bored and
hungry. A clever magician had an idea. He waved his magic wand and turned the king
into a duck. “You will be a duck until you learn to love the rain,” he
said.
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Role Play.
Recently I performed in a pantomime
for children based on a nursery rhyme. As in traditional pantomimes, the
children were involved and what wonderful fun they had. It made me think
that more families should use drama within the family. All kinds of
situations could be dramatised from shopping, visits to the doctor or
hairdresser, to taking the role of a sport’s coach or acting out scenes from
favourite books and TV series like Bananas in Pyjamas or cartoon series. As
Kids love to dress up, use simple scarves or paper and tape to make props.
Get the children to make suitable music for movement with percussion
instruments or from CD’s they own. Swap roles too, letting the children take
adult roles while adults act the child’s role. Just have fun.
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Making a
forest
At many child care centres, there
wonderful outdoor play areas that are planted with trees, shrubs flowers and
vegetable gardens. Some have dry, stony river beds and even frog habitats.
One centre I remember had a forest of silver poplar trees that the children
loved. Growing a forest isn’t a quick project and certainly won’t suit every
centre or backyard but what about a miniature forest in a sand pit or a
vegetable garden?
Children can go on a collecting hunt
as you prune bushes in the garden. They could bring in twigs, bark rocks,
shells, prunings etc. This morning as I walked, the road was littered with
gum leaves and small branches as a result of last night’s storm. These would
have made a wonderful addition to any sandpit. Add plastic animals and this
forest setting would stimulate play for mornings to come.
I can also imagine a vegetable
forest. My silver beet is going to seed and the plants have shot up high.
Look at the plants in your vegetable garden. Could your children make a
spinach forest or a garlic one with small plastic people searching through
it for wild animals that have escaped from the zoo?
At my place the rains have brought
spring growth to the weeds and as the mower battery is flat, I haven’t been
able to mow yet. I may even pretend this wilderness is a forest and hide
toy animals and people there for my granddaughter to find at the weekend.
I’m sure she will have great ideas to extend the game.
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Christmas crafts
Many people in a child’s life like
to receive a gift made by that child. If you have school-age children or one
at pre-school, you will already have lots of ideas but every year there are
new parents sending their children to some form of early education who may
not have a background in craft so here are some ideas.
Paint
- Keep paintings to use as gift
paper or to cut into Christmas cards.
- A piece of paper folded while
the paint is wet gives a lovely blot or butterfly affect.
- Spattering – dip an old tooth
brush in thin paint then brush back and forth on thin wire gauze or a
strainer to get tiny spots of paint. Before spattering place plastic
animal shapes on the page so that the animals will be left white when
the paint dries.
- Cut paintings into thin strips
and glue these strips into long streamers to decorate a room or tree.
Grass and leaves
- Send children to look for
leaves of different sizes, textures, colours. Very tiny leaves and many
different shapes of leaf can be found in the grass e.g.clover. Press the
leaves between paper for a few days then ask the children to arrange
leaves on paper from a craft paper pad. Put a dab of glue under each
leaf.
Clay
In some centres children have been
introduced to using potters’ clay and their creations have been glazed and
fired. Parents and grandparents value art objects made by their children.
Even a two year old can squeeze clay into a shape or pound it flat and when
fired that piece can be used as a paper weight.
Photos
Kids love to take photos. Let them
take some photos of things that interest them, print the pictures and paste
onto craft paper to make cards or to make a scrap-book.
Hammer and nails make modern art.
Kids love to hammer away at pieces
of wood. Let them use full sized hammers as ones with large heads are easier
to use. Nails with large heads are also recommended. Let the children have
control over their creative sculptures. It doesn’t have to be named and can
be painted and have fabric and foil stuck or hammered on. It can become a
garden ornament or even decorate the bathroom or the patio if it doesn’t
match the décor inside.
Decorations
Advent calendars are fun. Simple
ones can be cut from last years Christmas cards. Cut pieces about 10 cms x
5cms then fold in half. Write an activity in each card and staple shut.
Write the numbers for the days to Christmas on the cards and hang up.
Children open one card each day and do that activity. Here are some
suggestions:
-
Make foil balls to put on the tree
-
Collect pine cones to paint
-
Make a wreath to hang on the front door
-
Make Christmas cards
-
Learn a Christmas song
-
Find a toy to give away
-
Make paper chains
-
Get out the tree to decorate
-
Help to make Christmas chocolates or biscuits
-
Glue glitter on a small bottle and light a
small candle inside it.
- Make paper baskets for sweets to give to the
neighbours.
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