Some Easy Activities To Do At Home
Here at Joyful Journeys, we always support our families and give them support on what they can do at home with their children.
There are lots of easy and cheap activities that families can do to provide learning and development opportunities for their children with simple activties.
Experience Cheap And Easy Activities
Playdough
Playdough is an excellent way to support your children with learning through play and experiences. One benefit includes the impact that it has on physical development, this is because, it gives children the opportunities to squeeze, mold, pinch and roll the playdough. As well as this is can promote creativity and curiosity by how the children can explore what they are able to make with the playdough and develop new techniques in shaping the playdough. If you were to make the playdough, it gives more benefits such as measuring and mixing as well as colour identification if you decide to put in colour.
There's lots of different ways to make playdough, a good example of this is:
- Put 8 tbsp of plain flour and 2 tbsp of table salt in a bowl and mix together. In a separate bowl, use 60ml of warm water and mix with food colouring. Once this is done, pour it into the same bowl and mix until it's brung together. Once it is all together, dust the surfaces with flour and turn out the dough. Knead this for a few minutes until smooth.
Nature Modelling
Nature modelling is an excellent way to support and nurture you children's love for the outdoors. A good way to collect up nature bits is by going on a lovely walk perhaps through a park and try to look for what different leaves, acorns, sticks or conkers you can find for example.
It is understandable that you may not want your child to pick up the nature bits with their hands and so therefore you could always bring some small pinches for them to use and put them in a box. To remove any dirt, you can then wash it off and leave them to dry before playing with.
The benefits of doing this includes the impact that it will support the children to expand their creativity by creating what they want and giving opportunities to experimenting with what they can make by putting objects in different places. Another benefit is that it provides communication opportunities by talking about what they are going to do next with and what they are making, which helps to get your child to think about what they are doing.
Gardening
Gardening is an excellent way for children to get stuck into the feel of nature and learn more about the world around them.
There are many benefits to gardening, one example of this is that the children will be able to watch their plant grow. In doing this, they will be given the independence and responsibility for ensuring they continue to water the plant and planting the seeds.
Other benefits towards this includes that the children can learn more about the life cycles of flowers and plants which you can talk to them about, with how the flowers starts from a seed and with sunlight and water it can grow into a plant or flower and then once it is fully grown, the seeds will fall into the soil and the cycle starts again.
Sensory Play
Sensory play is a great way for them to encourage children to get stuck in and explore with their senses. There are lots of different ways to do sensory play:
- Rainbow rice - Rice, food colouring and vinegar
- Coloured pasta - Pasta and paint
- Sand, salt, mud and water
- Oats, lentils, flour and turtle beans
- Oobeck - Cornflour, food colouring and water
- Shaving foam
There are lots of benefits towards sensory play. A good example of this is by how you can encourage children to pour and watch as it falls. This can be supported by using cups and bowls with the play. As well as this, it can encourage the children to make this into a tea party, which can involve sharing and communication opportunities.
Another benefit of this is that it encourages mark making with it. This is because it allows the children to make patterns, shapes and letters with their fingers or other objects.
Cutting Up Leaves
Using scissors is a big part of a child's physical development. It's very important for children's independence to feel like they are able to accomplish cutting their own paper and initiating their own play more.
An excellent way to promote and encourage your child to use scissors is by going on a walk with them and collecting up leaves and using them to cut up with them.
This can create lots of different activity ideas, one example of this is getting the children to cut some hair for the leaves. This will provide the children with opportunities to cut the leaves but being careful on where they cut it and so therefore encourage them to develop their creativity in how they want to cut the hair.
As well as this, you could also encourage children to cut up the leaves and stick the pieces to make a picture.
Potion Making
Potion making is a good way to encourage children's imagination. You can explore on what you put into the potions examples of this is:
- Washing up liquid
- Flowers
- Paint / Food colouring
- Sticks
- Ice cubes
- Pom poms
- Leaves
There are lots of fantastic benefits towards doing potion making with children, one example of this is that it provides opportunities for them to experiment with what they put into their potions. This is good because it makes the child watch what colours go into the bowl and the change in textures and so therefore providing communication opportunities.
Object Painting
Painting is a very fun activity for children to expand on their expressive arts and design development. It provides so many benefits, one example of this is by how it offers the children to do colour recognition as well as mixing the colours to find out what they can make.
Painting to make it look like an object or following a guide, gives opportunities for the children to really look at what they are doing and allows them to think about what they need to do next and what colours to use.
There are lots of options for what you can do with painting such as:
- Fingerpainting
- Using brushes or sponges
- Decorating