Educate and entertain the kids this school holidays with these fun activities. What’s more, they’re all free!
SHOP AWAY
Give each child some coins. Gather things like books, toys, stationery, CDs and DVDs, and price each item. Appoint a cashier and a shopper for each round of the game. Setting up a play shop is a great way to introduce junior to the concept of money, says Peggy Ong, CEO and founder of Pro-Teach Education.
SCIENTIFIC TERRIFIC!
You need a plastic jar with a tight lid, water, cooking oil, food colouring and a torchlight. Pour equal parts of oil and water into a plastic jar and add several drops of food colouring. Start off with one colour and let your child shake up the jar and watch the oil and water separate and the beads swirl and dance.
Now let junior try adding a different colour into the jar. Study what happens when different colour combinations are mixed. Then ask your child to shine a torchlight through the side of the jar and observe the effect. This experiment will surely fascinate children, says Helen Marjan, joint managing director and director of studies at Lorna Whiston Schools.
WHODUNNIT?!
If your tyke enjoys solving puzzles and mysteries, he’ll love this investigative game, says Helen. Prepare some sticky tape, silver foil, a card, string, safety pin, magnifying glass, torchlight, baby powder and an empty envelope. Show your child how to cut a badge from a card. Write his initials in big letters on the badge. Glue string around each letter so the initials are raised. Then cover the badge with silver foil, securing the foil with sticky tape at the back. Attach a safety pin to the back of the badge and voila – his very own detective badge!
Now your child is ready to start on his detective hunt. First gather a detective kit – a magnifying glass, torchlight, baby powder and a large envelope for collecting clues. He should look for the clues you’ve hidden around the house. Once he has found and collected all of them, he can make up a story of what he think happened at the crime scene.
TWO-HAND DRAWING
Encourage your child to colour with both hands on a sheet of paper. This trains him to use his left and right brains concurrently, hence creating more neural connections between the two hemispheres and stimulating the senses of sight and touch, explains Alan Yip, master trainer and peak performance coach of Mind Edge and author of Funtastic Parenting.
