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!
This scavenger hunt is a great way to get your kids up and moving, practicing their reasoning skills and using descriptive words. It comes curtesy of Primary Playground and would work well with both your preschool children and any school-aged siblings.
Your child won’t even realise they’re exercising with this silly workout video from GoNoodle. Follow along with energetic instructions to roll giant meatballs, smush bugs, shoo away pigeons, and raise the roof. You may need to point out to your child the figure in the black circle at the bottom corner of the video, as this will show your child which actions to do.
Choose a chilly afternoon and get your little ones into the kitchen to help make soup. This Baked Bean Soup recipe from ‘I Can Cook’ on CBeebies is an easy option that even young children can help to prepare.
You will need:
3 dsp (dessert spoons) tinned borlotti beans
1 spring onon
1 stem celery
3 dsp chopped cooked bacon
1 clove of garlic
1 pinch of chilli flakes
1 dsp tomato puree
1 pinch of stock powder
250ml water
Grab your shakers and practice vowel sounds with Jackie as she sings ‘Apples and Bananas.’ Then she reads ‘Penguin’ by Polly Dunbar, which is all about a boy who is determined to get his pet penguin to talk to him.
Song and story ♥️
Posted by Musical Bumps Cambridge on Monday, 6 April 2020
Watch colourful ‘rocks’ bubble and fizz as they start to dissolve in this fun science experiment. What surprises are hidden inside?
You will need at least a handful of bicarbonate of soda, a bit of water, vinegar, some food colouring, and any small toys that you may wish to hide inside the rocks.
1. Slowly mix drops of water into the bicarbonate of soda until you have a thick paste.
2. Divide your mixture up into different ‘rocks’ if you wish to make more than one, and add a few drops of food colouring to each. Mix this in.
3. If you are going to hide small toys inside each rock, form the rock around the toy. If not, then just squish the mixture into a rock-shaped lump.
4. Leave the rocks to dry for a few hours until they have hardened.
5. Now it’s time to get out the vinegar. Have your kids slowly drip vinegar onto the rocks. Pipettes, an eye dropper, or a squeezy water bottle can all help with this job. Watch how they bubble and fizz when the vinegar comes into contact with the bicarb. As the rock dissolves, it will reveal the surprise that you hid in the centre.
Why are the rocks fizzing? Vinegar is an acid and bicarbonate of soda is an alkali (a base that dissolves in water). When put together, they react to neutralise each other. This chemical reaction releases carbon dioxide, a gas, which is the bubbles that you see.
Photo courtesy of ScienceSparks.com
Need to calm things down? If your kids are bouncing off the walls, try playing this cool down video from GoNoodle. The soothing instructions get your kids to pretend to freeze like ice cubes, and then slowly melt into a puddle.
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 noise-maker (such as a shaker, musical instrument, or pot and spoon), something to wave (such as a scarf, ribbon or tea towel), and a pillow. Then, join Dantastic and Cheeky Monkey on an interactive, magical, musical adventure!
This activity from the Woodland Trust is a great way to get your kids active, using their imaginations, and learning about nature! Challenge them to:
1. Lie on the ground and wriggle like a worm
2. Flap their arms like a butterfly flutters it’s wings
3. Put their hands on the floor and scuttle about like a spider
4. Do some giant leaps like a cricket
5. Crawl on the floor, then curl up into a ball like a woodlouse
Then, head over to TheSchoolRun.com for lots of interesting minibeast facts, photos, and a video.
Spring is here and there are lots of interesting birds to spot right outside your window. Your kids will love this messy craft project from the Woodland Trust to make their own bird feeder.
Take the empty cardboard tube from a roll of loo roll and get your kids to smother it in peanut butter (the kind without any added salt or sugar).
Then, roll the tube in birdseed. If you don’t have birdseed at home, the RSPB recommends foods like uncooked porridge oats, cooked rice, any breakfast cereal, raisins or other dried fruits, seeds, or even mild grated cheese.
Now it’s time to tie up your new bird feeder outside and see who pops round for a snack! Print out a bird watching checklist to help you and your child identify different types of birds.
