During the coronavirus pandemic, Pippins staff began assembling this Home Resources area to help support our families through lockdown. We wanted to ensure that all the children in our community continued to have access to fun, enriching activities and learning experiences, even while the government was asking most of us to stay at home. To date, we have posted over 150 resources in this area, which you can use at home with your children. These activities are meant to engage and inspire you and your children, not to make extra work for you. Therefore, please pick and choose only those activities that you feel are most suitable for your family.
Happy playtime!
Rosita from Sesame Street is feeling nervous about her first day of school. Mr. Andy from Headspace is here to help and teach Rosita and Carmen a special monster meditation called “Belly Buddy Breathing.” With a little bit of teamwork, Rosita’s ready for school!
Two-Headed Monster’s block tower fell over, and Two-Headed is feeling frustrated! His friend Mr. Andy from Headspace has a monster meditation that can help. When you’re feeling frustrated, sometimes it can help to take a break and blow out your imaginary candle before trying a task again. Watch and learn!
Print out this I Spy game from Paper Trail Designs and let your kids hunt for all the different letters on the page. Can you spot all seven Rs? This is a great way to practice counting and letter recognition.
Please remember to use the phonics sounds for the letters, rather than the letter ‘name’. For help pronouncing the phonetic sound of each letter as your child will learn them in school, check out this helpful video and phonics guide from Oxford Owl.
Celebrate summer and help your child develop their fine motor skills with this Paper Plate Sun Craft from Buggy and Buddy. The instructions ask for yellow materials, but there’s no reason you can’t make a colourful sun, or use some yellow paint instead.
You will need:
Paper plate
Hole punch
Pipe cleaners
Straws (or tube-shaped pasta, like penne)
Scissors
Yellow paint and/or decorations, such as tissue paper, glitter, sequins, etc.
Glue, if you’re using decorations
Today’s songs are all about the weather, with Veronica, who runs Family Melody sessions in Cambridge.
Enjoy songs and rhymes about different kinds of weather.
Posted by Baby Massage and Melody Cambridge on Sunday, 3 May 2020
Learn a special rhyme along with Grover to help focus on doing one thing at a time.
This simple game can be played anywhere and will help your child practice their memory skills.
Each player starts off with the same sentence: ‘I packed my granny’s trunk and in it I put…’ The player completes the sentence with any object they can think of. For example, ‘I packed my granny’s trunk and in it I put a shirt.’
The next player repeats the previous sentence and must add a new object: ‘I packed my granny’s trunk and in it I put a shirt and a monkey.’ In turn, each player has to remember what the past players have said and add their own item.
For older players, you may wish to increase the difficultly of the game by requiring each new item to start with the next letter of the alphabet. For example alligator, banana, cupcake, etc.
Print out this I Spy game from Paper Trail Designs and let your kids hunt for all the different shapes on the page. Can you spot all five circles? This is a great way to practice counting and learn about different shapes.
Here is another colouring page from Pippins for your little ones to enjoy. Print the page and let your kids enjoy colouring all the silly apple faces on our Pippins Apple Tree colouring page. We’d love to see their masterpieces on Facebook when they’re finished!
Learn how to relax for bedtime and feel sleepy along with Elmo in this Monster Meditation from Sesame Street and Headspace.
