Ravina Sewani

How to:Using pillows and cushions design an obstacle course in your house. From the start line ask your child(ren) to go through the obstacle course to reach the finish line. You can also make 2 or more children compete against each other. The child to finish the course the fastest, wins the game. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This game will tremendously improve your child’s motor skills and body balance.

Pillow obstacle course

How to:Give a soft ball to your child. Mark the start and the finish line. Ask your child to roll the ball from the start line to the finish line. To make it more interesting, set up a timer and encourage your child to finish the rolling as fast as they can. Fun fact:For older kids, you can also tape down a maze on the floor and ask your child to roll the ball from the starting point through the maze to the end point. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This game will improve your child’s motor skills.

Roll the Ball

How to:This is a very fun activity and it is bound to bring about a lot of laughter with it. Give simple instructions to your child, for example, “Simon says sit”, “Simon says clap”, “Simon says jump”, and so on. Your child has to listen to these instructions carefully and enact the instructions.The catch here is: If you give the instructions like “sit”, “clap”, “jump”, the child is not supposed to do anything. Only when the instructions begin with “Simon says”, does the child have to follow it. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will enhance your child’s brain’s processing ability and focusing skills.

Simon says

Things you will need: plastic camping material, water sprinkle, shampoo bottle&nbsp;How to:<ol><li>Gather at the backyard or the lawn of your house with kids and get on with your water play activity.</li><li>A slope is preferable for this activity so that children can easily slide.</li><li>Spread out your camping material over the slope.</li><li>Run the water down the length of the plastic material using a water sprinkler. You can keep the water running continuously if you can fix the sprinkler at a height.</li><li>Add inexpensive shampoo or a soap on the surface of the plastic slide to make sliding easier and faster.</li><li>Turn on the sprinkler to get water flowing down the slide.</li></ol> Happy Sliding!

Significance:This activity will enhance your child’s coordination skills.

Homemade DIY Water Slide

Things you will need: Inflated balloon(s) How to:This activity can be done in groups, pairs, or just by a single child. <ol><li>If it is groups or pairs, ask the children to stand at a sufficient distance. Give one inflated balloon to each child. Start the timer and ask them to hold the balloon on their palms without the support of their fingers. The child who can hold the balloon on the palm the longest, wins the game. You can also do 'best of the three' to make it a fair game. Moreover, if your child does not have a sibling and his/her friends can't come over, you can do this activity with your child.</li><li>If it is only a single child doing this activity, make him/her hold the balloon on their palm against the timer. Every time, push your child to hold the balloon longer than the previous round.</li></ol> Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will improve your child's concentration and hand-eye coordination.

Balloon on Palm

Things you will need: inflated water balloons, small kids pool This is a group activity and needs to be done outdoors to not make a mess inside the house. How to:<ul><li>Put water balloons into a small kids pool and instruct the children to sit down and attempt to break the balloons.</li><li>The one who pops the most balloons in the shortest amount of time wins this game.</li><li>After each child takes a turn, empty the water from the pool and refill with the same number of water-inflated balloons.</li></ul> Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will enhance your child's coordination and motor skills.

Water Balloon Sit and Pop

Things you will need: cooking pot, cooking spoons, bowls, stones, shells, flowers, leaves, scissors, food colouring, glitter tubes How to:With the help of your child set up the activity as follows: <ol><li>Fill up a large stock pot with water.</li><li>Add some food colouring to it and set it on a table.</li><li>Ask the children to prepare the soup by adding different ingredients - stones, shells, flowers, leaves, glitter.</li><li>Let them enjoy the open ended play and see what kind of soup the children come up with.</li></ol> Note: This activity is best played in groups. Also, make sure that both boys and girls are included in the activity to beat the gender stereotypes!

Significance:This activity will introduce the concept of cooking food in an interesting way. It will also help kids to develop team work and social skills.

Fairy soup

Things you will need: small ball which a child can carry, plastic bottles or cups as pins How to:<ol><li>You will have to create enough space before planning out this game.</li><li>Lay down the bottles or the cups at one end.</li><li>From the opposite end, ask your child to roll the ball towards the bottles.</li><li>Encourage your child to hit the bottles in such a way that all of them fall.</li><li>This game can also be played in teams if there are more number of children.</li><li>You can also buy the indoor bowling set from the market. Keep a track of points the children score after their turn. At the end of the game, the child with maximum score wins the game.</li></ol> Happy Gaming!

Significance:This game will improve your child’s motor and coordination skills.

Indoor bowling

You will need nothing for this activity. How to:This is a group activity and needs about a minimum of 6 children to play it. Choose a kid to be the Goose. Make the rest of the kids sit in a circle. The Goose then shall walk around the circle, tapping each kid on the head and calling, “Duck, duck, duck, duck…” Eventually, the Goose calls “Goose!” when tapping a child. The child on whose head "Goose" is called should be aware enough and at once stand from his/her place. The old Goose has to then run around the circle and try to sit in the vacant spot before the new Goose can catch them. There can be two outcomes:<ol><li>The old Goose sits down in the new Goose’s spot without being caught by the new Goose. A new round of the game begins.</li><li>The old Goose gets caught before (s)he gets to sit down in the vacant spot and hence remains the Goose for the next round.</li></ol> When does this end? Who knows? Children can play this game for as long as they want! Happy Running Around!

Significance:This activity will enhance your child's alertness about his/her surroundings and people.

coordination skill activities

Activities are an interesting way to teach important life skills to children. Here are a few suggestions for you.