Ravina Sewani

Things you will need: 5 cups, one jug (which a child can easily lift), watercolours (optional) How to:Fill up a small jug with water. Place 5 cups in a row on a table. Remember that the table’s height should be such that if your child stands, (s)he can reach the table.Next, demonstrate the activity by filling the water in the cups from the jug. Empty the cups in the jug again. Now, ask your child to do the same. Let your child do it on its own. For the first few times, your child might spill the water but with time will master it. Then ask your child to empty the water from the cups into the jug again.You can make this activity interesting by adding colours in the water to make it attractive. You can use transparent cups so it’s visually appealing to your child. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will help improve your child’s motor skills and hand-to-eye coordination.

Pour water in cups

Things you will need: grapes, bowl How to:<ol><li>Remove the larger stems from your grapes and wash them thoroughly with water.</li><li>Spread the grapes out evenly so that they aren't touching each other on a baking tray and cover them. You can use a wooden, wicker, bamboo, or plastic tray that is slatted, so air can circulate around the fruit. Use a kitchen towel to cover the grapes.</li><li>Your cover should be effective at keeping insects away from your grapes. Make sure that whatever you use to cover the grapes won’t get blown away in the wind. If your cover is light, you may need to weigh it down on its corners.</li><li>Place the tray outside in the sun during warm, dry weather. Put the tray in a location where it will get lots of sunlight during the day. The warmer and dryer the climate (temperature is at least 75 °F (24 °C)), the easier your grapes will dry out.</li><li>If your area gets foggy or dewy at night, take the tray inside at the end of the day and place it outside again the next morning.</li><li>Allow the grapes to sit outside for 3-4 days, rotating them occasionally. The grapes may take up to 96 hours to become sufficiently dry. However, they should be left outside for at least 3 days. Rotate the grapes twice each day to make sure the grapes are completely exposed to the sun.</li><li>After 3 days, feel free to conduct a taste test on 1 or 2 of the grapes to see if they’re sufficiently dry. If they’re to your liking, go ahead and bring them inside. If they’re not quite dry enough, leave them out for another day.</li><li>You can leave grapes out in the sun for up to 5 days, though you shouldn’t need to leave them out any longer than this.</li><li>Take the dried raisins inside and store them in an airtight container. Store the container in a cool place or refrigerate them. Suggested storage containers for air-dried raisins include mylar bags, tupperware, and glass canning jars with an oxygen absorber.</li></ol>

Significance:This activity is an early and interesting exposure to science.

Turning grapes into raisins

Things you will need:liquid food colouring, cotton swabs, milk, dish soap, water and shallow pan. How to:Make sure that all the steps are carried out by your children. You can keep an eye on them for protection.<ol><li>In a shallow pan, carefully pour a little quantity of milk that covers the bottom of the pan, just a thin layer of milk covering the bottom&nbsp;of the pan.</li><li>Next, add several drops of different liquid food colouring in the milk.</li><li>In a small bowl, mix a small amount of water and 2/3 drops of dish soap. Mix it well.</li><li>Pick up a cotton swab and dip it in the dish soap and water mixture.</li><li>Now comes the magical part! Then put the cotton swab in the milk – pressing it down in one spot and holding it there for about 15 seconds. Observe the magic.</li></ol> Why does the colour start spreading?When the dish soap mixes with the milk, it breaks down the fats in the milk. The molecules in soap run around and join with the fat molecules in the milk. Normally this process would be invisible but because there is presence of the food colouring, it helps you to see the movement taking place. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will develop curiosity in your child and provide early science knowledge. This activity develops motor skills of your child.

Magic Milk

Things you will need:Water, cooking oil, blue food colouring, 2 litre transparent bottles, funnel. How to:Make sure that all the steps are carried out by your children. You can keep an eye on them for protection.<ol><li>Fill about half of your bottle with water using the funnel.</li><li>Now, add several drops of blue food colouring. If you are using liquid colouring, you can directly add 3-4 drops. If you are using powdered food colouring, mix the powder with a small amount of water. Now add these coloured drops to the jar.</li><li>Shake the bottle properly so that the food colouring mixes well.</li><li>Next, using the funnel, add vegetable oil in the bottle but leave a few inches at the top. Close the lid of the bottle.</li><li>Turn the bottle over slowly fro 2-3 times and observe what happens!</li><li>You can make this activity more interesting by adding a few shells, water animal toys, glitter colour. You can also mix blue and green food colouring to produce a more ocean-like colour in the bottle.</li></ol> Happy Gaming!

Significance:The activity will greatly enhance your child’s motor skills and help them learn about ocean and its life in a fun way. It also teaches about different densities of oil and water.

Ocean Bottle

Things you will need: transparent and deep container (bowl or a box), stones or your child's toys How to:This is a very simple activity demonstrating how the thirsty crow was able to drink water from a pot with very little water. <ol><li>Take a transparent container which is deep. Prefer to not use the glass container as it poses the risk of being broken and someone might get hurt.</li><li>Fill 1/4th of this container with water.</li><li>Start adding the stones/toys one by one and see the water level rising.</li><li>You can also opt to narrate the thirsty crow story with this activity. This will peak your child's interest.</li></ol> Note: Explain to them why the water rises to the top after adding the stones/toys. As the stones or toys are denser, they sink in water. (Refer to our 'Sink or Float' activity in the app to have a better idea. We would suggest you to carry out that activity before taking up this one).When the stones sink, they displace water and occupy that space. Hence, the water rises up. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This will enhance your child's understanding about floating/sinking of things in water.

The Thirsty Crow Activity

Ali Momin

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:2 big containers, soap, mud, sand, soil, water, brushes, sponges. How to:Make sure that all the steps are carried out by your children. You can keep an eye on them for protection.<ol><li>Take a container to create mud pit by adding soil, sand and water.</li><li>Take another container to create soap water.</li><li>Place the containers at quite a distance. Connect these containers via a track on which cars can go on.</li><li>Dirty the cars in the mud pit. Send the cars to the soapy water container via a track.</li><li>Clean the cars with sponges and tooth brushes.</li><li>Then clean the cars with clean water and set them to dry.</li></ol> Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will help kids appreciate our community helpers. This activity enhances gross and fine motor skills of kids.

Muddy car wash

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: boxes of different sizes but more or less of the same shape How to:Give them boxes of different sizes and ask them to stack as many as they can without letting the boxes topple down. Instead of boxes, you can give them anything. The only thing to remember is that all the things should be more or less similar yet be difficult enough to stack up on each other. Let them figure out why their stacked tower is falling. They will gradually be able to stack more things and make a bigger tower of things. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This game will help improve your child’s motor skills and logical thinking skills.

motor skill activities

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