My Body Jigsaw
Ask your child to lie down on a large sheet of newsprint paper.  Draw around them.  Help your child ‘decorate themselves’ by painting on their clothes and facial features etc.  Now cut the body picture in pieces and invite your child to put it back together.  This is a fun activity and very useful for helping your child learn body part names.

Fingerprint Daisies
These cute flowers are fun for your child to make – and a great opportunity to teach your child how to count to five!
Pour a little yellow paint in a dish and have your child dip their finger in it then print it on a piece of paper.  This is the centre of the daisy.  Have them do this five times – leaving enough room in between each one to add the petals.   Next have them dip their finger in a dish of white paint and print five petals around each yellow centre.  They might also like to draw or paint a green stem and leaves under each flower.  (Single fingerprint daisies make fabulous mini-card decorations for presents!)

Paper Plate Meals
This is a fun way to teach your child about healthy food choices and balanced meals.  Provide magazines, scissors, glue – and paper plates.  Help your child cut out pictures of healthy foods, then arrange them on the plates in appropriate combinations for each meal.

Hot and Cold Game
Choose one of your child’s favourite toys and hide it when they are in another room.  Invite your child to come in and try to find their toy.  When they head in the wrong direction, hold your arms close to your body and say “Brrr – you’re getting cold”.  When they head in the right direction, fan your face and say “Phew – you’re getting hot”.  Continue until they find the toy.

Sandwich shapes
When you make sandwiches for your child’s lunch, try cutting them into different shapes each day.  Try two rectangles, four small squares, two large triangles or four small ones.  This is a good way to teach older children about fractions – quarter, half and three quarters

Balloon Sculptures
You Will Need:
1 balloon – blown up
String or wool scraps
Liquid glue (wallpaper paste works well)
Crepe paper streamers
Pipe cleaners
        1. Dip the wool scraps in the glue and wrap
            them around the balloon.
        2. Hang the balloon up to dry
        3. When the wool is completely dry, pop the
            balloon and you will be left with the sculpture.
        4. Tie streamers and pipe cleaners onto the  
            sculpture for extra effect.

Homemade Creative Play
Mix one cup of cornflour with 2 cups of baking soda.  Add 1-¼ cups of cold water and stir together over a low heat.  Continue stirring until the mixture has the consistency of mashed potatoes.

Turn the clay out onto a plate and cover with a damp cloth.  Leave to cool.  Once the clay is cool enough to handle, knead well.  Use immediately, or store in an airtight container.

Homemade creative clay has a lovely smooth texture and is great for modelling.  Your child can make ornaments, beads for jewellery, or ‘pottery’ dishes.

When the creation is finished, leave it to dry at room temperature for three days, then decorate with paints, felt pens, or glue and glitter.

String Painting
Dip a 10cm length of string into liquid glue and slap, trail or squiggle the string on a piece of paper.  Sprinkle glitter over the wet glue and shake off the excess.

Use paint instead of glue and make a colourful string ‘squiggle’ picture.

Try winding the string into spirals on the paper.

Squiggles
Draw a squiggle on a piece of paper and pass it to your child.  They can add to it – then pass it back.  Continue until you both decide the picture is completed.

This is good fun for the whole family to play – pass the picture around the table and let everyone contribute.
Make it even more fun by having several pictures going at once!

Dot-to-Dot Shapes
This activity is good for older children.  Fill a few square centimetres with even spaced dots.  Take turns drawing a line to connect any two adjoining dots. Lines can only be horizontal or perpendicular. 
When a box is completed, the player who added the last line writes their initial inside the box.  When all the boxes are completed, the player with the most initials is the winner.
This can also be done with triangles – and diagonal lines can be used too.

Fish Flap Race
Draw a large fish on a sheet of newspaper, and then cut it out.  You will need one for each player.
Place the fish side by side on the starting line.
Now flap a magazine or newspaper behind the fish to create an air current, moving them towards the finishing line!

Ping Pong Football
You will need:
Coffee table (or play widthways on a dining table)
2 ice-cream containers
Play-dough
A ping-pong ball
Straws
Place the ice-cream containers on their sides, at either end of the table, securing them with the play dough.
Place the ping-pong ball in the middle of the table.
Players take a straw and choose a goal.
Players blow through their straw to move the ping-pong ball towards their goal.
This game is for two players – but the whole family can play, as sideline cheerleaders can challenge the winner!

Through the Arches
You will need:
About 10 marbles
A large empty cereal box
Scissors
Marker pen
Cut the cereal box in half lengthways.
Cut 4 arch shapes along one of the long sides of the half box.
Label each arch with a score – i.e 1,2,3,4, or 5,10,15,20.
Position the box about 1.5 metres away, on the floor.
Roll the marbles and aim for the arches.
Write down the scores and add them up after all the marbles have been rolled.
Or you could use counters to represent the scores – which can be counted up at the end – adding maths skills to the game!

Treasure Hunt
Children love games that they can win!  Treasure hunts give children the opportunity to ‘beat’ their parents for a change.  Start out by hiding a small object such as a toy car or block, somewhere around the living room.  Ask your child to ‘hunt the treasure’ and give them small verbal clues, such as ‘It’s behind something’, or ‘It’s underneath something’.  When the hunt is over, close your eyes and let your child hide the treasure for you to find!  Let them provide the clues.  For older children, try hiding several items throughout the entire house, or use the garden.  Try making a treasure map, using picture clues.

1,  2,  3,  4,  5
Learning to count can be fun when you include numbers in everyday activities:
1.  When you dress your baby, count one arm/leg, two arms/legs, as you put their clothes on.
2.  As you clean your toddler’s hands at the end of a meal, count each finger.
3.  When your child is helping put the groceries away, ask them how many carrots you bought; how many
packets of cereal; how many bars of soap . . .
4.  At tidy up time, ask your child to pick up three toys and put them where they belong.
5.  When rinsing the shampoo out of your child’s hair, ask them to count how many cups of water it takes to do the job.
6.  Count steps as you go up and down them.

Older preschoolers can count things like:
1.  How many steps from the living room to the kitchen
2.  How many claps in between each wipe of the car window wipers
3.  How many stop signs on the way to Grandma’s house


In the next month we'll add a whole lot more of these types of activities you can do with your children.