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At HIPPY Halton, we believe in nurturing the development of essential skills in young children.
This January, we’ve put together a month of activities that focus on different skill sets each week, helping your child grow in fun and engaging ways.
Week 1: Fine and Gross Motor Skills Development
Skill Highlight:This week, we’ll focus on strengthening your child's fine and gross motor skills. Fine motor skills involve small movements, like using fingers to shape snow dough, while gross motor skills involve larger body movements, like making snow angels or waddling like a penguin. These activities help children improve hand-eye coordination, balance, and overall body control, laying the foundation for later learning and physical development.
Activities:
Snow Dough Sensory Play: An easy recipe for snow dough, perfect for shaping snowflakes and snowmen. This tactile play encourages fine motor development. TRY IT OUT
Easy Chocolate Snowballs Recipe: A fun cooking activity that develops hand-eye coordination as children roll dough and create snowball-shaped treats. TRY IT OUT
Gross Motor Control Activities: Pretend to be animals from the snowy arctic while moving your body—flap like a snow owl, crawl like a polar bear, or hop like an arctic hare.
Read Along: Enjoy a heartwarming story with Jonty Gentoo - the Adventures of a Penguin.
Week 2: Math Skills Development
Skill Highlight:In Week 2, we’ll enhance your child's math skills by integrating counting, sorting, shape recognition, and pattern building into everyday activities. Through simple games, such as counting objects or building towers, children develop a strong sense of numbers and shapes. These foundational skills are crucial for early math concepts and help improve problem-solving abilities, logical thinking, and spatial awareness.
Activities:
5 Daily Ways to Improve Math Skills:
Point Out Shapes: Talk about the shapes you see around the house or outside. Identify circles, squares, triangles, and more in everyday objects.
Count Objects: Find small items like toys, rocks, or buttons, and count them together. Counting out loud helps reinforce number recognition and understanding.
Play Sorting Games: Sort objects by size, color, or shape. This activity develops pattern recognition and helps introduce early classification skills.
Build a Tower: Use blocks or other objects to build a tower. As you stack, talk about concepts like "tall," "short," or "higher," reinforcing spatial relationships and counting.
Compare and Contrast: Compare objects around you. Ask questions like, “Which is bigger?” or “Which is longer?” This encourages logical thinking and early measurement skills.
Math Songs: Incorporate music and rhythm to help reinforce math concepts like counting and patterns.
Read Along: I Hope by Monique Gray Smith—a beautiful book to inspire early language skills and encourage storytelling.
Week 3: Science Skills Development
Skill Highlight:This week, we're diving into science skills by encouraging your child to explore and experiment. Through fun and hands-on activities, like the baking soda balloon experiment or magic milk, children will learn about cause and effect, color mixing, and basic chemistry. These activities foster curiosity and introduce scientific thinking, promoting observation skills and the ability to make predictions and understand simple scientific concepts.
Activities:
Baking Soda Balloon Experiment: Explore basic chemistry as your child watches a balloon inflate with a simple kitchen experiment. TRY IT OUT!
Rainbow in a Jar: Learn about colour mixing and liquid density with this colourful and fun activity. TRY IT OUT!
Magic Milk: Watch a dish explode with colour as children experiment with dish soap and food colouring. TRY IT OUT!
Read Along: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle—help your child recognize colours and animals through this iconic story.
The Wonky Donkey: A fun and heartwarming read to spark conversations about inclusion.
Week 4: Literacy Skills Development
Skill Highlight:In Week 4, we’ll focus on literacy skills, emphasizing the importance of reading and storytelling in early childhood development. By celebrating Family Literacy Day, your child will practice listening, comprehension, and language skills through shared reading experiences, creating stories, and engaging in literacy-based arts and crafts. These activities help strengthen vocabulary, imagination, and narrative skills, forming a solid foundation for lifelong reading and writing success.
Activities:
Family Literacy Day: Celebrate reading and storytelling together! Set a reading goal, visit the library, and try literacy-based arts and crafts to spark creativity.
Literacy-Themed Arts and Crafts: Create bookmarks, design book covers, or act out scenes from a favourite story.
Outdoor Scavenger Hunt: Combine reading and physical activity with a scavenger hunt where clues lead to books!
Read Along: I Love You to the Moon and Back by Amelia Hepworth—enjoy this heartwarming story together.
One Snowy Night: A cozy read perfect for winter, One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth is a favourite to snuggle up with.
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