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.
Turn the cardboard tube from an empty roll of loo roll into a butterfly, a snake or an octopus. You’ll need to cut out the correct shapes for your child, but when it’s time to decorate their new friend, they can let their imagination go wild! Use whatever craft materials you have on hand – coloured paper & glue, pens, crayons, chalks, paints, glitter, stickers, etc.
Photo courtesy of Rossi’s Art and Crafts.
Photo courtesy of High Park Nature Centre.
Photos courtesy of Understanding Boys.
This game requires 2 or more paper plates, 1 or more cardboard tubes from a roll of kitchen roll, and some scissors. You might also choose to use hot glue and/or some paint.
Cut a hole in the centre of a paper plate (1 for each of your cardboard tubes) that is just large enough to slide the end of the cardboard tube through it. This is to stabilise the tube and help it remain standing. Alternatively, you can use a bit of hot glue to attach the cardboard tube to the centre of the plate, or cut the end of the tube like a fan and tape it down to the floor without a plate.
Depending on your paper plates, you may want to get your kids involved at this point. They can paint/decorate the remaining plates that will be the colourful ‘rings’ for tossing. When their artistic endeavours have dried, cut the centre out of each plate, so that only the rim remains.
Now let the games begin! Teach your child how to throw the rings frisbee-style and try to get them to land on the cardboard tubes.
Photo courtesy of From ABCs to ACTs.
Watch colours burst in a tray of milk in this exciting art and science project. Visit Babble Dabble Do for instructions and an explanation of the science behind why this works. For this project you will need cow’s milk or almond milk, washing up liquid, cotton buds, food colouring, and a shallow baking dish or wide bowl.
Get your kids up, dancing and laughing along to this amazing video by children’s entertainer Dantastic Productions. Before starting the video, help your kids collect the thing they will need: a pair of socks, a noise-maker (such as a shaker, musical instrument, or pot and spoon), something to wave (such as a ribbon, scarf, or tea towel), and a favourite cuddly toy, doll or puppet. Then, join Dantastic and Cheeky Monkey on an interactive, magical, musical adventure!
We can’t go out to eat in a restaurant at the moment, so why not create one at home? Plan a special family dinner with your kids. Write out menus for the meal and let your children decorate them. Think about how you can make the meal feel fancy by offering multiple course, such as carrot sticks for a starter and fruit & yogurt for dessert. Talk to your children about making healthy food choices for the menu. Let your kids think up a silly name for your restaurant and for each item on the menu.
Get your kids involved in setting the table nicely with cutlery for each course and napkins (or kitchen roll) at every place setting. They can even make some 3D paper flowers to put in a vase as a table centrepiece and design their own placemats.
During the meal, talk about table etiquette. Let them try laying their napkin in their lap, practice saying ‘Please pass the…’ instead of reaching, and explain about using different pieces of cutlery for each course.
Brighten up your home with some 3D paper flowers that your children can make themselves (with some adult support). All you will need are some coloured pieces of paper, scissors, glue, and either some drinking straws or a bit of clear tape.
1. Choose whichever colour paper you’d like to use for the petals (feel free to mix and match with lots of different colours – even wrapping paper will work to give you patterned petals). Cut the paper in half lengthways.
2. Support your child to cut strips from the paper.
3. Get your child to glue the two ends together for each paper strip, so that the top forms a loop. Your petals are now ready.
4. While the petals take a moment to dry, choose another colour paper and cut two matching circles for the flower centre.
5. Now get your child to glue the flat ends of the petal loops to the centre of one of the circles.
6. When all the petals have been glued down, flatten the end of a straw and glue that to the centre of the circle as well. This will be the flower stem. If you don’t have any straws, tightly roll up some more coloured paper and use a bit of tape to hold it together.
7. Lastly, glue the second circle onto the flower centre to cover up all of the ends of the petals and stem.
Make a bunch of different coloured flowers with your child and put them in a vase to display!
Check out the video below from Retouch Paper & Crafts to see these instructions step-by-step.
Join Popcorn the Dolphin in an adventure to follow the map and find the treasure before the pirates. Get your kids stretching and moving with this pirate-themed yoga from Cosmic Kids Yoga! This video is 15 minutes long, so your child may not be interested in completing the whole thing in one go, and they might not be able to copy all the moves perfectly. It’s okay to try a couple of moves, and then revisit it another time to do a bit more.
