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The past two years have seen major disruption to all aspects of life. Covid-19 impacts the entire world on a scale never before seen in living memory. One of the hardest hit is the children, mainly their education. Millions of schools were closed during the worst of the pandemic, and many more continue with unpredictable opening and closing. Fortunately, there are many fun learning activities for child development you can do at home to boost learning.
Online Education Games
The current generation of children is the first growing up with no concept of the world before the internet. And whether you love it or loathe it, there is a lot more to the worldwide web than social media and adult entertainment. The internet is a unique tool for learning, and the resources are almost endless. While some of the best, such as ABCmouse, are available off-line, you can supplement professionally developed software with easily accessible online tools like Twinkl, BrainPop, and e-Learning for kids for pre-K school children.
Sorting Shapes
The early years are critical for developing logic skills. Yet logic doesn’t come so easy to many children. Researchers have discovered that youngsters use both the right and left sides of their brains to accomplish the same task. On the other hand, adults process most tasks using their right or left hemisphere. As you develop, you become dependent on one or the other. This is why some people are great at math, and others are great artists. Shape-sorting activities like jigsaw puzzles stimulate both sides of the brain in kids and help their cerebral development.
Artistic Expression
Further to nurturing the right side of the brain for creativity, artistic expression helps with much more than creating works of art. While your logical ability enables you to understand language, creativity is responsible for forming words into coherent sentences. In children, these abilities aren’t fully developed, and they use artwork to convey feelings they don’t have the words for. Additionally, kids use art to describe what they have done and what they have experienced. Therefore, artistic expression should be encouraged to help kids cope with life.
Learning Through Play
You might remember all the fun activities you did when you were a child. But, you probably weren’t aware that playing at school is a subversive method of education. Education and psychology use the term “learning through play” to describe how kids learn. Play helps kids develop social and cognitive skills, emotional maturity, and confidence to try new things. Some of the best examples of learning while playing include running, climbing, dancing, and rolling. All of which help with motor skills, social development, and physicality.
Water Activities
There are many excellent materials for helping kids understand the world around them. For instance, without realizing it, building sandcastles and then knocking them down teaches children about gravity. Water play is similar in that it can teach kids about more laws of physics. For example, playing with boats helps understand that there is an equal and opposite reaction for every action. Additionally, filling up cups and even getting into a paddling pool expresses the Archimedes principle of volume via water displacement. However, water is also just plain fun.
