Last updated January 2022
Ideas to enthuse and engage young children at home
Introductory activity
In this section, we suggest some activities for you to try out at home.
Let's begin with the Sticky Note. Sticky Notes have come a long way since 1974 when Arthur Fry, irritated by bookmarks that fell out of his hymn book, came up with the idea.
Give your children a Sticky Note. How many uses can they think of in 1 minute?
If you want a few
inspirational ideas, search Pinterest, or YouTube.
Popular ideas include using a sticky note to pick up dust, to clean a computer keyboard and even to act as a temporary plaster.
Here are some examples of using sticky notes in activities to develop numeracy and literacy taken from Pinterest.
Not only are there hundreds of different uses for sticky notes, but also many very creative designs. Take a look at these examples.
(if you follow the link, apologies for number 15).
More activities using different objects
In Teaching on a Shoestring, we provide hundreds of ideas to engage and enthuse children linked to a wide range of objects, from apples to zebra-patterned fabric. For ease of reference, the book is arranged in an A-Z format.
Let's take the example of socks and shoes.
For each object, we give a summary of background information, called 'In a nutshell'. And we include a 'Did you know?' box of interesting facts to share with your children. We then provide guidance on the resources you need to be 'Ready' to do the suggested activities with your children. It's a good idea to keep a stock of items such as paper, pencils, sellotape, crayons, glue, and paints, which you are likely to use for many projects (keep them in a shoebox!) Always keep in mind health and safety advice.
Because language is so important to children's all-round development, take every opportunity to introduce new words. We give examples for each object-based activity.
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One view of teaching says that it is important to share with children what it is you want them to learn. In classrooms, it is common for children to be told what the lesson goals, learning intentions, outcomes or objectives are (teachers call them different things).
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As home educators, the important point is to be clear about what you would like your children to take away from the experience. Perhaps it's just to enjoy spending time together. Or you might want to have a particular skill or concept that you want to introduce or develop. Sometimes, what we learn unintentionally is as important as any intended outcomes.
And so, for each activity, we have suggested at the 'Steady' stage thinking about goals but without becoming too prescriptive and rigid. Our advice is to follow young children's natural curiosity with prompts when needed.
clog
sparkly
bright
glitter
new
Dutch
Once you have the resources you need and a sense of what you want your children to learn, it's time to explore or have a 'Go' at the suggested activities.
We include other ideas you may want to explore further. The activities you chose can depend on lots of factors, such as your own mood, children's interests, and individual temperaments, as well as the weather, or the resources you have to hand and time available. As a general 'rule of thumb' (incidentally, check out the unfortunate original meaning of this phrase) you might want to take children outside to learn on average 40 minutes a day, at least that is the recommendation from one expert.
For each entry, we also include a section to encourage children to find out more. Increasingly, young children are using mobile technologies such as ipads and they can be taught simple strategies (eg using picture search) to help them extend their knowledge and understanding. But they can also find out more in other ways, such as visiting a library and borrowing free books to read, going to the local museum to look at what objects have been found in the area or talking to adults such as grandparents about their experiences perhaps before the object was invented (eg mobile phone), or in using a similar object (eg wooden rather than plastic clothes pegs to hang out washing).
Unfortunately, Tony Bradman's wonderful picture story The Sandal is now out of print but you can still find copies on secondhand book sites such as abebooks.com
Extract taken from Teaching on a Shoestring by Russell Grigg and Helen Lewis ISBN 9781785833076 © Russell Grigg and Helen Lewis, 2018 Illustrations © Les Evans, 2018
At the end of any activity, it is always good to review with children whether they enjoyed the experience - sometimes it's pretty obvious by their level of engagement and interest.
But it is also important to find out what they have actually learned. If you decided to share with them the learning goals or intentions, then these can be referred back to although you might simply want to aks your children to talk about one thing they liked (smiley face), one thing they think they might do better next time and any questions they may have.
You could also share your thoughts because it is important to model with children that learning can be fun, challenging and sometimes frustrating, but with perseverance ('keeping at it') and practise ('try again') they should get better.
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You can see the full set of suggested ideas for 'Socks and Shoes' by clicking on the pdf icon below, along with some suggestions for activities relating to apples and eggs, egg timers and egg boxes.
Finally, we include 26 suggestions from the hundreds featured in Teaching on a Shoestring. You may need to do a little bit of further research on some of these starting points. You need to click on each picture to see the full description.
YouTube hosts many short videos with suggested activities using everyday objects. Here are four of our favourites, although you will need to skip the adverts at the beginning. Video 3 is more about using your hands, but does feature objects.
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Go to the Gallery section to see examples of children's work.
Answers to the quiz (featured in the Did You Know section)
A=red. B=West Ham. C=83. D=yes (In 2015 more people died of taking selfies than shark attacks). E=6. F=35. G=A ‘gob’ is a molten lump of glass to which a glassblower attached a tube to blow the glass into shape. The blower had to blow hard which made his cheeks very large. Today someone with a big mouth is told they have a big gob – hence the expression, ‘Shut yer gob.' H=Hawaiian Islands. I=Sweden. J=Paddington Bear. K=5mm. L=30%. M=cartographer. N=13,000. O=imprisonment. P=41. Q=Queen looks right on coins, left on postage stamps. R=petrologist. S=length of the toe. Hence kings had large shoes. T='Merry Christmas' U=China. V=French, velour (velvet) and crochet (hooks). W=Paddington Bear. X=a woman's hand, x-rayed by accident. Y=Turkey. Z=black animals with white stripes.