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!
The Department for Education’s Hungry Little Minds campaign features tips and practical activities that parents can do at home with children to support their early learning. Activities are broken into different age groups from newborn through 5 years old. There is also a selection of apps recommended for different age groups.
Check out this simple game from Five Minute Mum to help your child get used to recognising letters. It can be done with foam letter mats, pieces of paper, kitchen roll – whatever you’ve got lying about.
Also, consider train alternatives if your child isn’t a fan of trains. Five Minute Mum has some great suggestions, such as a pirate ship or a princess carriage – but use whatever your child likes to inspire the game.
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.
Guide your little superhero through this set of Superhero Yoga Poses from Kids Yoga Stories to help them strengthen their body and mind. When they’re finished they’ll be ready to take on any baddie!
Let your children get stuck into some cooking with this Cheesy Chicken recipe from ‘I Can Cook’ on CBeebies.
You will need:
2 cherry tomatoes
1 pepper
50g cooked chicken
25g mozzarella cheese
1 tbsp grated cheddar
2 leaves of basil
Pinch of black pepper
This upgraded version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey is guaranteed to lead to lots of giggles! Start with a piece of paper or cardboard and draw a big oval on it. This is the outline for your funny face. Tape it up on a wall at your child’s height.
Then, on a separate piece of paper, draw some eyes, ears, a nose and a mouth and cut them all out. Alternatively, print out a couple of copies of this colouring page, get your child to colour them in (this is a great opportunity to talk to them about their 5 senses!), and then cut out the shapes.
Add some blu tac, or low-stick tape to the back of each of your face parts. Then, blindfold your child (a scarf works), and have them try to put all the face parts in the correct spots on your face outline. Enjoy the silliness of their wonky face masterpieces!
For younger children, you may wish to play this game without the blindfold. This would be a great activity to think and talk about the placement of facial features and a building block towards purposeful mark making.
Feel free to get creative with different faces, depending on your artistic abilities or skill with a google image search. This game would work with silly monster faces (multiple eyes, horns, etc.), princess faces (include a tiara to place on her head), pirate faces (eyepatch and bandana), alien faces, etc. Use your imagination and your child’s particular interests to come up with your own ideas!
Photo courtesy of Five Minute Mum
Do you have some of those colourful plastic ball pit balls lying around your house? Use a permanent marker to write letters on the balls, and then try this fun phonics game from Five Minute Mum. If it’s a warm day, this would be a fun activity for the paddling pool. If not, it works just as well indoors with a laundry basket, box, or hidden all around the room!
For help pronouncing the phonetic sound of each letter as your child will learn them in school, watch this helpful video from Oxford Owl.
Sing along with Jackie and practice barking like a dog in ‘I Have A Dog, His Name is Jim.’ Then listen to the story ‘Jason’s Extraordinary Hair’ by Rachel Hayward.
Song and story ♥️
Posted by Musical Bumps Cambridge on Wednesday, 8 April 2020
This is a great scavenger hunt from Primary Playground. Use it help your child explore all their different senses and practice descriptive words.
A super-simple and healthy recipe for Thai Green Turkey Balls, from ‘I Can Cook’ on CBeebies.
You will need:
2 eggs
75g cooked turkey mince
90g breadcrumbs
1 tsp plain flour
2 tbsp Thai green curry paste
Help your frustrated child calm down with this series of yoga poses specifically designed for reducing anger. Visit Kids Yoga Stories for 5 different safari animals that your child can pretend to be, while letting go of their frustration.
While your child is practicing, head over to National Geographic Kids for some fun facts about elephants, hippos, and lions.
