Help your child practice their numbers with this great Maths Water Balloon Toss game from Primary Playground. Use some chalk to draw numbers 1-10 (or whichever numbers your child is learning to recognise) onto your driveway, patio or the pavement outside your house. Draw a circle around each number (tip: make the circles large and spaced well apart to help your child aim). Then give your child water balloons or a sponge and water bucket, call out a number, and have them toss the balloon/sponge to see if they can hit the right number!
Help your child practice their phonics with this great Alphabet Water Balloon Toss game from Primary Playground. Use some chalk to draw some letters (you may want to choose the letters of your child’s name, or whichever ones they are currently learning to recognise) onto your driveway, patio or the pavement outside your house. Draw a circle around each letter (tip: make the circles large and spaced well apart to help your child aim). Then give your child water balloons or a sponge and water bucket, call out a letter sound, and have them toss the balloon/sponge to see if they can hit the right letter!
If the weather doesn’t suit getting a bit wet outside, you can also try an indoor version of this activity with the letters written on paper and soft toys to toss.
For help pronouncing the phonetic sound of each letter as your child will learn them in school, watch this video featuring Mr. Tumble from CBeebies.
Feeling cooped up at home? Let your children take out their frustrations on this cracking activity.
When you use eggs, be careful to crack them by hitting them on the point, rather than cracking them down the middle. Rinse out the shells and save them up. When you think you have enough empty shells, it’s time to head out into the garden with your kids. Fill each shell with paint (or even coloured water, ketchup, juice… feel free to get creative with liquids). Prop up a large sheet of paper or piece of cardboard against a fence, wall, easel, box, etc. and let your children take turns throwing the eggs against the paper/cardboard as hard as they can. Watch what happens to the paint as the eggs smash! Get your kids to talk about what happens to the different colours as they mix together on the paper.
For younger children, it may be easier to put the paper flat on the ground, have your child stand on a chair above it and drop the eggs. They’re more likely to accurately hit the paper with this method, and gravity will help with the force needed to break the eggs.
Photo courtesy of Growing a Jeweled Rose.
Also called kinetic sand or cloud dough, moon sand has an amazing texture and can provide hours of sensory play for your little ones. We use moon sand at Pippins quite often, and the children love to get involved with making it.
Making moon sand only requires two ingredients – plain flour and some oil (vegetable, canola, baby, or any sort of oil will do) – but adding extras such as food colouring, scented oils or even some glitter will ratchet up the fun. Find instructions for making moon sand on parentingchaos.com.
If you fancy some messy play, but have little ones who put everything in their mouths, try this amazing spin art activity from Babble Dabble Do, which uses yogurt and food colouring for paint. All you need is a large pot of yogurt, some food colouring, a bamboo skewer or pencil, some paper, a spot of hot glue or tape, and a large plastic tub (or bathtub, garden, driveway, etc. to keep the mess off your walls!).
Here is an easy art project from Babble Dabble Do. Making Muffin Tin Prints is all about letting your kids experiment with colour. Supplies needed are a muffin tin (or similar), some different coloured paints, paintbrushes (or fingers!), paper and scissors.
