A week of planned activities for kids

A week of planned activities for kids Our mission is to provide parents with all the means to help their children grow in every way.

We understand how difficult it must be for parents to find the right resources and the right answers when it comes to their child’s educational development. And also, how time-consuming it can be. The time spent browsing the vast internet for quality educational resources could be spent doing fun activities with your child.

To this end, we have decided to put our teaching experience at your disposal. We aim to become your go-to resource when teaching a new skill or enhancing it. Your go-to resource when in need of guidance, information and hands-on resources to help your child have a great start in life. Your source for personalized worksheets and advice, and your weekly resource bank of ideas.

Our aim is to make good use of the thousands of games, worksheets, and activities that we used in our 21 years of combined teaching experience. And to offer you simple, efficient, and tested resources to help your child’s skills grow and flourish.

We believe that a well-informed parent is a helpful parent! To that end, we aspire to guide parents on this fascinating journey of growth and offer them the support needed in nurturing their child’s uniqueness.

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A surprise box of toys – this is a stereognostic activity, meaning the ability to identify an object without using any of your senses, except touching. Maria Montessori called this “the sixth sense�. This is a great activity because it involves an element of surprise. Blindfold your child, have him look away or close his eyes to discover the surprise. For this activity, I use a box of very old toys that belonged to my husband. It is more difficult to identify toys that the child doesn’t usually play with and so you make the activity more exciting for him.

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Match the socks – choose socks of various colours and patterns so that your child doesn’t get

confused. Put them in a hamper because taking the socks out of the basket is a fun activity in itself. Ask your child to choose the matching socks and pair them up. Once paired correctly, roll each pair into a tiny ball and let your child play with them. Of course, matching socks can be transformed into matching anything that seems fun: cups, shoes, flowers, toys etc

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Action songs – cannot think of a better example of gross motor skill activity for toddlers and preschoolers. It involves so much movement and it is also great fun! I love action songs because children listen actively in order to perform the actions, but they also learn to follow instructions, not to mention that they learn new vocabulary. To top it all, some action songs actually taught my son how to spell. So there are many benefits to using action songs.. S-T-O-P Stop from Patty Shukla is a great song, as well as all of her action songs. Also try to listen to The Learning Station.

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Read by yourself – Make reading books a ritual and read the same books over and over again. By

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Toys treasure hunt – hide toys around the house and give your little one a bag/backpack/box to go

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Antwalk - to play this indoor game you need two people. It is very simple and fun. The players start

doing this, your child will start to remember some words, and in the case of rhyming books and nursery rhymes they might remember all of the words. Try the exercise of retelling the story together making use of pictures, key words, and questions. To spark curiosity and encourage independent reading (even when they cannot read the actual words) try to use: tell me why type of books, a children’s atlas, social stories, picture dictionaries of food, transportation, plants and animals, depending on the child’s preferences, and books that practice skills: tracing, colouring, matching, counting etc.

and search for his treasure. He will walk around the house (run in our case), bend, crawl on the bed/sofa, sit down and stand up, all good movements to exercise gross motor skills. Add to this the excitement of discovering something hidden and you’ve got a perfect activity for toddlers and preschoolers.

from opposing sides of the room and must walk towards each other by taking tiny steps, heel in front of toe.

Before starting, players must decide on a number, 7 for example. They take the 7 steps and then players must perform a dare, one they can actually do without having to move from the spot. The players perform the dare and then they decide on another number and start walking again, tiny steps. The first to get to the other side of the room wins. If a player moved from the spot while performing the dare, you can always try again. And again!

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Obstacle course – whether inside or outside, this is a great activity for toddlers and preschoolers.

Obstacles should not be too complicated, simply build on the skills your little one has acquired so far, be it crawling, jumping over, leaning, fine motor skills such as grabbing, pinching. Place a great reward at the finish line for greater motivation. My son loves fruit so I used an orange. And don’t forget that the older the child, the more complex the challenge, you can even include congnitive tasks: quickly solve a puzzle, match some pictures, order the letters of the alphabet etc.

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Whack the bunny – This is an activity that practices hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills.

Use a shoebox and make holes in the lid. Make them round and equally apart. Use a hammer or an object of a similar shape and a finger puppet. Put the finger puppet on the hammer head and make sure the shoe box is large enough for the hammer fit inside. Give your toddler something to use to whack the bunny’s head.

Surprise your toddler by coming out of the holes faster and slower.

Darts –Use a cardboard box to make a game of darts. Simply cut out a circle, draw some animals on it, and attach it to the wall. Make some small balls out of paper or try to aim for the animals. Try to draw the animals closer together, so that your little one has more chances of aiming something. To make it more fun, ask the child to mime the animal he hits. When played in pairs, give each other animal dares: bark, jump like a kangaroo etc.

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Get the lid in the bottle – this is a gross, as well as a fine motor skill game: cut a plastic bottle in

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Fish for letters/toys – children love splashing so when in need an engaging activity, fill the

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Mixing – You can use cooking ingredients, but you can also try mixing elements you find outdoors:

half; make a hole at the bottom of the bottle and one in the lid. Using a string, connect these two. and tie a knot at each end. Give your child the bottle and tell him to shake it so that the lid gets inside the bottle. First, demonstrate so that your child knows exactly what to do. Then, ask him to hold the bottle tightly placing both hands on the sides of the bottle. And tell him to throw and shake it so that the lid gets inside. Gentle moves work best!

bathtub/large container and throw some toys inside/letters/numbers (not necessarily bathing toys). Try to grab the toys in various ways: with a spoon/tongs/one hand/ two fingers etc. Collect all the toys in a shopping basket/box and then throw them back in. I used this with foam letters and numbers so that my son can also learn while playing the game.

leaves, dirt, twigs, flowers, pebbles, sand. Finding these elements is a great activity in itself if you choose to play the game outdoors. Let your child use his hands and mix all of them together, feeling their different textures. If you do this indoors use a variety of ingredients and utensils: flour, chickpeas, rice, beans, bowls, cups, scoops, tongs etc.

Places around town – using wooden lego blocks you can build streets, parks, and various places around town. Then use cars, helicopters, animals to explore the city, stop and eat at a restaurant, go to the park, go shopping or visit the zoo. So many possibilities! And so much vocabulary can be practiced with this game.

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Balloon numbers - Use small tickets and write numbers from 1 to 10 or 20 depending on how high your child can count. Put one ticket/more inside a balloon. Blow up the balloon and let your toddler play with them. When he is done playing ask him to pop the balloon and find out what numbers are hiding inside.

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Number PPT Game - This simple PowerPoint game takes no longer than 3-5 minutes and it is not only fun, but also educational. Simply have the child click on any of the colourful squares and have him guess what is hiding behind the blocks. One by one your children will remove the blocks to reveal numbers and objects. Count the objects together and name the written number. Use the arrows to move back and forth. If you wish to reduce screen time, simply click on show and have the child name what he sees and move on.

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Numbers threading - Simply cut out a circle (use cardboard to make it sturdier and manipulate it more easily) and punch holes all around the edge. Write down various numbers, one/two/three-digit numbers.

Make sure to assign numbers to all the holes you punched. Use jute twine and tie a knot at one end. First demonstrate what the child has to do: connect two numbers by threading the jute. Once you checked your child understood what he needs to do, let him play. You could ask the child to thread a star or a pattern of their choice. The game can even be played in pairs. They give each other instructions: go to number X. To practice saying the numbers, simply have them come to you and describe what they did (insist on reading the numbers: “I started with 329 and then I went to 102�

in the s

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Learn to spell -Use the lists provided in the spelling section according to age: for beginners (chil-

dren who recently learned the alphabet) use the 3-letter-words. For children who are confident (can easily recognize the letters) use 4/5-letter-words.Make use of manipulatives to spell the words in the lists. Children can use stickers/ magnetic/ foam /laminated letters to spell the words given. They can even throw foam letters in water as they spell each word (hedge-first select the letters that spell the word and then throw them one by one in water). Have them spell the words in flour if you are brave enough. For older children who know how to write all the alphabet well, use the categories list. Let your children write down 4 words of their choice for each category on the list. Check the spelling on the list. Once checked, the children can spell the words written using the same manipulatives.

Alphabet Matching with bottle caps -Using bottle caps, draw 26 circles on a big piece of paper (I glued 2 A4 pieces of paper together). Inside each circle, write the letters in pencil. The reason why I’ve written them in pencil is that I can easily erase and either leave the circles blank or rewrite them in uppercase, lowercase, cursive and so on. Take your bottle caps and write a letter on each one. The aim of the game is for the child to match the letters on the paper with the ones on the caps You can erase the letters altogether and encourage your little one to put the letters in order while chanting them. After the child can confidently recognise the letters and their sounds, you can put a picture in the circles on the paper and ask the child to pick the cap with the letter with which each picture starts.

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Liar, liar - Display the targeted letters in a line on a surface. You will start by saying the name or sound of each letter in order. Repeat them as many times as you like but at one point, intentionally, point to a letter but say another name/sound. Your little one will have to pay attention, spot your lie and correct you.

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Read my mind - Choose a set of pictures/flashcards depending on what you wish to revise/teach your child. Display the flashcards/pictures on the wall/floor/table. If played in pairs, the two players will assume the role of “runners�. The two “runners� will go to different corners of the room. Tell the children that you have chosen a word from the ones displayed and that they have to guess which one it is. The children take turns at guessing the word. When one child guesses correctly, the two “runners� should run to the wall and touch the respective picture. The quickest will win a point.

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2. Picture game -draw a small part of a picture. Ask your child what it is going to be. Encourage different opinions. Continue drawing, adding details bit by bit. Do not reject or confirm any ideas. Build the picture up in about four stages, after each stage stop and invite your children to guess. Tip! Draw an abstract picture and encourage your children to tell you what they see and give details.

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Listen to the sounds - Either play recordings on your phone or mime the sounds yourselves.

Play the recording/mime and let your children guess what/who made the sound. Another option would be to play a music video/a scene from a TV show/series and have your child turn around so that he cannot see, but only listen. Your children can guess the character/describe the scene Tip! For older children: pause the sound and let the player continue the scene.

For younger players: play only animal sounds, sounds in nature (wind, water, birds etc) or favourite cartoon characters.

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Slow reveal - Choose flashcards/large pictures of various objects/famous people/book covers etc

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Three-picture story - choose three large pictures (from your child’s books, from magazines, comics

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What has just happened - write down a series of exclamations (Yes!!. Oh no! Great! Never mind! Etc).

Use an envelope and place one picture/flashcard inside. Slowly extract the picture from the envelope, revealing it little by little. Reveal only a little bit and ask your children to guess what they see. Once again reveal a little bit more and invite guesses. Repeat the procedure until they guess correctly. Tip! Let your children manipulate the materials and do the revealing too.

etc). Show your child the first picture and encourage her/him to say anything they want about the picture. You should contribute as well. Show the next pictures one by one and repeat the procedure. Gradually add to the story and invite your child to think of an ending. Together retell the complete story.

For smaller children, simply utter them. Let your child choose one exclamation and think of an event that caused a person to say such a thing. Think of a short dialogue and act it out. Choose another exclamation and repeat the procedure Tip! For older children, give examples of what type of dialogue to think of: a dramatic dialogue, a funny short story, a TV show etc.

Who am I? - Players must choose a category first: animals for example. One member from each team must choose an animal to mime/draw it and the opposing team must guess. Teams have three tries to guess.

What would make the game even more exciting would be for players to play dress up in order to help their team guess who/what they are. They can then go look around the house for anything they might find helpful in dressing up as that respective choice.

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