Children find water play endlessly fascinating and will happily spend hours experimenting with the materials. Which slope works best? What happens if you add mud to the water? What about stones? To build your own ‘water-park’, start with a length of guttering and a jug of water. Later on you can add further lengths of guttering, drainpipes, …
Many modern tyre swings have the tyre sitting horizontally, with the inner circle forming a sort of seat. While infinitely more comfortable than the traditional vertical version, this set-up doesn’t allow children to spin around and limits the physical manoeuvres available to the child on the swing. It’s certainly no fun at all for the …
Make tissue paper stained glass in any shape you like, but the natural symmetry of a butterfly is helpful for problem solving and mathematics. Children exploring their positioning schema can really get behind the challenge of creating wings that mirror each other perfectly. And there’s plenty to learn in terms of colour, size, language, using scissors and …
Young children often enjoy posting items. The instinct to ‘disappear’ something is part of the enveloping schema. A game of Postman is doubly great because it combines enveloping with another schema: transporting. Many children enjoy the act of busily moving something from A to B. In Postman, you can combine these two urges in one fun game and …
Most of us has our own way of making a paper airplane, usually passed down from a parent or grandparent. Some of us make pointy jet-style aircraft, others fashion planes with snubby noses and wider wings. Some plummet headfirst to the ground, others seem to float more gracefully. The permutations are literally manifold. This makes …
As counter-intuitive as seeing your child hanging upside down can seem, it is essential for children to move in different dimensions for healthy development of their brains, muscles and complex balance mechanisms. That’s why they like doing it so much! Most children will also enjoy exploring their orientation schema at some point – hanging upside …
It’s easy to make your own non-toxic finger paints at home. You will need: 225g corn flour 250ml boiling water food colouring To make the paint: 1. Mix the cornflour with 100 ml of boiling water. 2. Stir together, adding the remaining water a little at a time. The cornflour resists mixing with the …
For an interesting variation on traditional building blocks, try making your own using natural materials. To do this you’ll need branches of varying sizes. Remember you’ll be cutting through these so don’t choose anything too thick. Pieces of bark are also very useful and don’t forget to include conkers and pine cones as these make …
Lotto is one of the best games to play with a pre-schooler. It encourages attention, teaches turn-taking and improves visual discrimination. It’s also a great way to reinforce learning, as new knowledge is more easily memorised during play. Letter sounds, colours, objects, words, numbers and more all come into a game of lotto. To play Alphabet Lotto: 1. …
Streamers are always fun. But did you know they’re also excellent practice for learning to write? The circular, vertical and zigzag movements they encourage are early forms of the loops, ascenders and descenders of writing. With all movements, we must first learn the gross (big) before progressing to the fine (small). Making circles with the arms comes …
