Keep your Preschool Nursery children entertained using everyday items
The warmer weather brings hopes of freedom and fun. But with lockdown still upon us for the next few months, it can make freedom seem a long way off and life with a little one very challenging!
Thinking of continual ways to entertain our pre-school children without breaking the bank means we all need to get creative and make use of what we have indoors.
We all know that preschool nursery children are often far more entertained by the packaging than the content, so with everyday resources and a little imagination you can have hours of fun!
Top tips when planning for pre-school nursery activities:
- The age and developmental stage of the child to ensure the activity is suitable
- The child’s mood, a well fed and rested child will be more receptive to activities
- Be mindful of how long you expect an activity to last, a child’s level of concentration is 1 minute per year of life
Activities are a chance to develop language and inspire imagination. By using descriptive age appropriate language we can introduce new words and excite young minds. Here are some great activities & games designed to do just that (as well as keeping your pre-school nursery children entertained whilst cooped up at home):
The Imagination Tree
Toilet/kitchen roll tubes
String
Benefits:
Colour recognition, hand and eye co-ordination
Shape Sorting
Coloured card, sharpie, coloured shapes
Benefits: shape and colour recognition. Vocabulary development
Rainbow Rice
Large container, rice, food colouring, scoops and funnels (sand toys)
Benefits: tactile development and fine manipulative skills
Serving Letter Cookies
Plates, foam letters, baking tray and spoon
Benefits: letter recognition and fine manipulative skills
Arts & Crafts Busy Box
Benefits: mark making, fine manipulative skills and hand and eye co ordination
Balls in a Box/ Colour sorting
Benefits: gross motor skills, colour recognition and hand and eye co ordination
Rainbow sticks/ Colour sorting
Benefits: colour recognition, fine manipulative skills and hand and eye co ordination
Shaving Cream Painting
Benefits: tactile development
Sensory Box Guessing Game
Benefits: descriptive language, imagination and tactile development, memory recall
Animal Mix-up
Benefits: hand and eye co ordination, language development, memory skills
Spider’s Web Discovery
Benefits : problem solving
Cereal Stacking
Benefits: hand and eye co ordination
Crunchy Box
Benefits: language development and gross motor skills.
Jelly Fishing
Benefits: hand and eye co-ordination, letter and number recognition, fine manipulative skills
Animal Bath
Benefits: sensory development, self care, language development
The following websites offer a variety of inspirational activity ideas, designed to excite and engage preschool nursery children whatever your budget or time constraints:
www.pinterest.co.uk – search for activities for early years