All posts by Mrs Findlay

Curiosity Inquiry Creativity, Health and Wellbeing

Kerplunk!

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This homemade version of Kerplunk is the perfect activity for
busy young minds and a great game for all the family to play.

What you need:

• Approx. 40 coloured pom-poms
• BBQ sticks, pipe-cleaners or straws
• A large colander

What to do:

1. Sit the colander on a surface and fill it up
with pom-poms.

2. Once the pom-poms are in, place your
sticks , straws or pipe cleaners through the holes,
from one side to the other. Depending
on the situation your wee ones  can help
you out with this too!

3. Turn the colander upside down, and get
your wee ones to take turns in removing the
sticks.

4. As they take out various sticks, pom
poms should start to fall onto the table.

5. Don’t place any rules on the children, or
any idea of ’winners’ – let them choose
how the game works.

6. Great for their fine-motor control, it’s
also a great way to let them express their
imagination and practice taking turns.

Curiosity Inquiry Creativity, Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Sciences, Technologies

Light and Dark Den

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Find a dark corner of your home or make a DIY den  and use torches to let your wee ones explore light and dark, shadows and silhouettes.

What you need:

• A dark corner or DIY fort or den
• Some torches or other lights
• A music player

What to do:

1. To begin, you’ll need a dark corner of your house, or use some blankets and chairs
to create a makeshift fort or den.
2. Let your wee one
experiment with dark and light,
turning the torches on and off. They can
also look at the silhouettes they create
and the shadows their bodies can make.
3. To add a new layer to the activity, take
a music player in with you and see if your wee one is interested in  moving the light and dark shapes in time to the music.

Curiosity Inquiry Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Numeracy and Mathematics, Sciences

Human Sundial

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This simple science experiment utilising the sun and
shadows is the perfect starting point for lots of fantastic
conversations. Get out there and catch the sun…while it’s there!

What you need:

• Chalk
• The Sun!

What to do:

1. The idea of this one is to teach your wee ones
a little something about perspective and
the world around them!

2. Make sure you have a sunny spot with
plenty of space for long shadows and nothing
creating its own shadows on your
spot.

3. On a sunny day, get your wee one
to stand on a certain spot and then have
another member of your family draw their shadow on
the ground in chalk.

4. Later on in the day, try again. How has
the shadow changed? What’s been going
on? It’s a great starting  point for all
sorts of interesting questions and learning
opportunities.

 

Curiosity Inquiry Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Numeracy and Mathematics

Symmetrical Shapes

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Give your wee ones a great grasp of shapes and space with
this simple shape matching activity.

 

What you need:

• Craft sticks or cardboard/ paper or duplo
• Coloured pens or wipe able ones if using duplo ( you can make the shapes on paper and stick them on to items)

1. Take two pieces of whatever you choose to use and make various
symmetrical shapes across the two pieces
so that the shape is only made full when
the pieces are put together.
2. Leave the pieces for your wee ones to explore,
you could demonstrate on how to
put them together to make a full shape.
3. If you make at least two
shapes on each set to give your wee one two reference points.

 

Curiosity Inquiry Creativity, Literacy and English

Letter Snap

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This twist on the classic memory game all the family can play together.

What you need:
• 24+ bits of paper or anything else you can use to write on
• A pen

What to do:

1. Take 24 pieces of paper  (or more if you like)
and write 12 different letters on each piece of
paper , making sure that there’s a
matching piece for every letter you
choose. You could play this game using numbers too.

2. Lay out the 24 pieces of paper randomly in
a 4×6 grid, and get children to take it in
turn to choose two pieces of paper each and turn
them over.

3. If the letters match, they get to keep
those two pieces of paper! If not, they have to turn
the paper back over in the right place.

4. The game is all about remembering the
letters you’ve seen before and matching
them up with new ones you discover.
Great for growing memories and practising
turn taking all while helping them to
recognise letters.