School Lockdown Activities!

Ritianne Spiteri

Mar 20, 20203 min read

Dear parents/guardians,

It’s been quite a while since I had some time to sit down and write something new on my website. So here we go …

Firstly, I wanted to say that I miss my classroom, I miss teaching, I miss my colleagues and most of all I miss my students! However, at a time like this it is important to stay positive and remember all the things we are blessed with right now!

I think it is very important to use this time as an opportunity to spend some quality time with your little learners. I know that keeping children indoors for days can be quite a struggle! So, as many educators are already doing, I wanted to contribute and help out parents by sharing some fun activities you can do with your children.

I promise that all activities are simple, inexpensive and most of the resources needed you may already have at home!

Mummies, rice is your new best friend! :

Playing with rice fascinates children! During rice play, fine motor strength, pincer grip, and hand-eye co-ordination are being developed. These are all helpful for handwriting later on at school. Language is also developed during rice play as children can narrate stories through 'small world' play. Children can also help to make coloured rice as children love being engaged in the creating process as well as playing.

Try adding different resources and toys to create different scenes and themes to your rice tray. You can also try using different grains such as lentils, beans, chickpeas etc.

Here are some activities I did with my little ones in class:

How to:

Pasta Play!:

Whether it's raw or cooked, children love playing with pasta! Playing with pasta has lots of different learning opportunities, it all depends on the resources you provide along with it . It helps in fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, language development, concentration skills, imagination and much more.

You may use different types of pasta for different activities, such as using penne for threading or scooping. You may also cook spaghetti, colour it and then provide different resources such as scissors and tweezers.

These activities were a hit with my kinder 1 class! You may decide whether you want to keep it simple and mess free as shown in the first two photos. Or you might opt to be more creative like in the last two photos.

How to:

Water Play!:

Water play is by far the easiest to prepare and the most loved activity by young learners!

Add soap, sea animals, numbers or anything that your little one would like to play with to make water play more engaging.

Here are some examples:

You can also give your little one a small basin filled with water and a paintbrush. Children will have the opportunity to water paint and scribble. This helps develop fine motor skills, tripod grip and imagination.

Play dough/Dough:

Play dough or even normal dough gives little ones endless opportunities of play. Play dough helps in the development of fine motor strength, creativity and imagination, hand-eye coordination and improves pre-writing skills.

Provide different resources as shown below to further enhance learning. You may find different playdough mats (2nd photo) on different sites such as sparklebox.com or twinkl.com

Dinosaur footprint Hop:

Children need a variety of different physical activities throughout the day. This simple activity helps children develop their gross motor skills, coordination and balancing. You can also take this activity a step further by asking your child to count the footprints and name colours.

The messier the happier!:

It is no news that children love messy play . So, mummies and daddies, if you are feeling brave check these three activities to do with your little one/s.

Shaving Foam Ice Painting Gloop

(Cornflour & Water)

Loose parts play means ENDLESS play!:

Loose parts are open ended materials that can be assembles, combines and manipulated in a variety of ways and have no predetermined play pattern. Access to a variety of transient materials during play and exploration aids in the following:

Problem Solving
Engineering
Creativity
Concentration
Hand-eye coordination
Fine motor development
Gross motor development
Language and vocabulary building
Mathematical thinking
Scientific thinking
Literacy
Social/emotional development
The list goes on and on…

Other engaging activities I found online:

Cereal threading:

Clothes hanging:

You could also let your little one match socks or sort them by colour. Using pegs is a great activity to strengthen pincer grip and hand-eye coordination.