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!
Illustrator of The Gruffalo, Axel Scheffler, and publisher Nosy Crow have just released a free digital book to help parents explain coronavirus to their children. Although it is geared towards 5-9 year olds, there is plenty of helpful information in it that preschool parents can use to answer questions like ‘Why can’t we go outside?’ and ‘Why can’t we visit Granny?’ You can read the book below, download your own copy, or print it out for your kids.
With colourful illustrations and lovely rhymes, this book is perfectly geared towards young children to give them a basic understanding of coronavirus. It was written by University of Exeter medical student Annis Watts.
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.
Photo courtesy of Made for Mums.
Cut some colourful paper into large shapes and place them around your house. Then ask your child to find them. For example, you could say, ‘Find 2 circles in the kitchen.’
As your child becomes more comfortable recognising the various shapes, try asking them to look around the room and find a household object for each shape. In this version of the game, two circles in the kitchen could be a clock and a pot, for example.
Visit PBS for full game instructions and ideas on how to support your child’s learning with this activity.
Can you spot any butterflies out your window? Use this as an opportunity to talk to your kids about a butterfly’s life cycle. Watch the below video together, then get your kids to act out a butterfly’s 4 life stages.
1. Start out as tiny eggs, rolled up in a ball on the floor.
2. Next, wiggle around on the ground like hungry caterpillars looking for leaves to eat.
3. Then, stand with your arms touching above your head as you hide in your chrysalis.
4. Lastly, spread your wings and fly away like a butterfly!
This is also a great opportunity to talk to your child about their own life cycle, as we often do at Pippins. Look at baby photos of your child together, talk about your child learning to crawl, then walk, and growing into a preschooler. Can your child come up with some actions for their own life cycle?
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 bit of aluminium foil, a noise-maker (such as a shaker, musical instrument, or pot and spoon), and something to shake (such as a pom pom or tea towel). Then, join Dantastic and Cheeky Monkey on an interactive, magical, musical adventure!
Do you have some electrical tape sitting in the bottom of a tool box somewhere? Or maybe some masking tape instead? Dig them out and help your children design a city on the floor – or even up the walls! Help your children learn to cut the tape themselves by sticking one end to the edge of a table, unrolling just the bit that they need, and then cut. Add small pieces of cardboard to your design for bridges, tunnels and ramps.
This project would work well as a city for small cars, a zoo for toy animals, a coral reef for pretend fish – whatever your imaginations can dream up!
Photo courtesy of Raising Twins.
Photo courtesy of A Girl and a Glue Gun.
Looking for a sweet treat? Get your kids in the kitchen with this Fresh Fruit Flapjacks recipe from ‘I Can Cook’ on CBeebies.
You will need:
80g blueberries or other soft fruit
35g wholemeal flour
25g caster sugar
35g oats
25g butter, plus extra for greasing the tin
Do you have a little kitchen helper in the house? Visit Primary Playground to download and print this chef’s hat that your child can colour and wear.
This episode of Song & Storytime is not to be missed! Your little ones will be laughing along and shouting at the screen as Jackie introduces her silly puppet, Casper. Participate in several call and response songs to see what sort of reaction you can get from Casper when Jackie isn’t looking!
Today’s book is actually a song, ‘There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.’ Enjoy the pictures on each page as Jackie sings her way through this silly story.
Song and story time ♥️
Posted by Musical Bumps Cambridge on Wednesday, 1 April 2020
