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.
Let your kids get stuck into this fun sensory activity. Not quite as messy as most messy play, this is a good option if you don’t want to have to clean paint splatters off your walls and the end of the day! All you need is a package (or more) of spaghetti, some food colouring, and possibly a few drops of oil.
Boil your spaghetti as normal, but remove it from the heat a couple of minutes early, so it’s still firmer than how you would typically eat it. Run it under cold water to stop the cooking and remove the excess starch.
Separate out handfuls of spaghetti into a bowl or zip seal bag for each colour you plan to make. Add some food colouring and shake the bag (or stir the bowl) until you’ve achieved your desired colour. If you find that the spaghetti is sticking together a lot, then add a bit of oil at this point.
Leave the spaghetti sitting out for about an hour, so the food colouring has a chance to dry, or refrigerate it if you want to make it to play with on another day.
When it’s time for your kids to get stuck in, dump all the spaghetti worms onto a wipe-clean table, or put them in a big plastic bin/bucket. You may want to hide small toys in the spaghetti for your children to dig through and find, or give them toy gardening or kitchen utensils to use such as spades, spoons, tongs, etc.
Have your kids ever asked ‘How big is space?’ Find out together as your explore the universe with this visually-stunning, interactive tool called The Size of Space from neal.fun.
Grab your favourite cuddly toy and join Dantastic and Gran for a pyjama party! This 30 minute video features songs, dancing, and a children’s story acted out by Dantastic Productions – with plenty of help from your kids at home.
This super simple ice cream recipe only requires 2 ingredients and an electric mixer. Get your kids involved making the ice cream base, then let them choose their own add-ins for different flavours. Some tasty ideas are crumbled cookie or cake pieces, any sort of fruit or fruit puree, chopped dried fruit, melted chocolate, caramel, or sweeties. Careful not to over-mix the add ins; you want the ice cream base to stay light and fluffy!
You will need:
600ml whipping cream
1 tin (approx 400ml) sweetened condensed milk
Depending on what sort of garden area you have at home, this might be a fun scavenger hunt to get the kids out in the fresh air for a while. It comes curtesy of Primary Playground.
Clean mud? Yes, you read that correctly. This satisfyingly squishy ‘mud’ is made with loo roll, a bar of soap and some paint. Additionally you’ll need a cheese grater (or similar), and a plastic bin to contain the mess (or let your kids do this activity in an empty bathtub!). Find the recipe for Rainbow Clean Mud on parentingchaos.com.
Dive from the ocean surface, all the way to the furthest depths and discover all the creatures that live there with this brilliant interactive tool from neal.fun, called The Deep Sea. Fans of The Octonauts from CBeebies will enjoy recognising familiar terms such as ‘The Midnight Zone,’ ‘cookiecutter sharks,’ and ‘colossal squid.’ There are lots of photos of different marine animals and interesting facts sprinkled throughout your dive, but you will need to help your child by reading the information out to them.
In this episode of ‘Get Well Soon’ from CBeebies, Dr. Ranj explains to Jobi the puppet what coronavirus is and why we all need to stay at home. Then they sing a fun song about washing your hands. Watch it here on BBC iPlayer.
Looking for a way to cool off as the days get warmer? How about a game of water balloon piñata? You will need some balloons, plenty of string, something to use as a bat (baseball bat, cricket bat, sweeping brush handle, long cardboard tube, etc.), and an open space outside to set up your game.
1. Fill your balloons with water and tie them closed. (The fuller they are, the quicker they will burst!)
2. Tie a length of string to each ballon and hang them outside. A tree branch would be ideal for this, but a patio cover, washing line, or outdoor umbrella may also work as long as they can support the weight of the water balloons. Make sure you don’t tie the balloons too high – your child needs to be able to reach them with their bat!
3. Let your kids take turns swinging the bat at the balloons and see who can pop the most!
Always supervise your child at all times with this activity, particularly when they are using the bat. Others must stand well back when someone is taking their turn.
Photo courtesy of ZiggityZoom.com
