Things you will need: Nothing 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 in a circle or facing each other. Start the timer and ask them to stand on one leg. The child who stands on one leg 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 stand on one leg against the timer. Every time push your child to stand longer than previous round.</li></ol> Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will improve your child's concentration and body balance.

Stand on one leg!

Ravina Sewani

How to:You can gather a few kids and teach them slime making! Kindly do this activity under an adult’s supervision only. There are ready-made slime making kits available in the market which you can buy for this activity. If not, you can use ingredients available at your house to make a slime. One such simple slime making method is as follows:1. Add 7 tablespoons of skimmed milk (without milk fat) to a cup. Then add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to the milk. Gently stir the mixture until you see solids being formed.2. Let the solids sink to the bottom of the mixture and then remove the extra liquid using a filter. Let the solids drain for a few minutes.3. Add ¼ teaspoon of baking soda to the solids and knead together to form a slimy mixture.The slime formed will be white in colour. If you want to make it interesting, you can add food colour in the milk before adding vinegar. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will improve your child’s sensory skills. It also relieves stress. This activity also enhances your child’s motor skills.

Slime making

Things you will need: a balloon, 1 litre plastic bottle, funnel, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 3 tablespoons of vinegar 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>Wash and dry the 1 litre. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the bottle using the funnel.</li><li>Pour vinegar in the balloon by placing the small end of the funnel into the opening of the balloon. Be careful while adding the vinegar.</li><li>Carefully stretch out the open end of the balloon and place over the mouth of the bottle. Leave the rest of the balloon hanging. Your child(ren) will need assistance at this step.</li><li>Hold on to the balloon at the point where it is attached to the bottle. Lift up the rest of the balloon to pour the vinegar inside the bottle, do not lose the hold at the mouth of the bottle and balloon.</li><li>Observe the bubble formation and balloon inflation.</li></ol> Why does this happen?Carbon dioxide gas is released when baking soda and vinegar mixes. Due to this gas, the balloon inflates. Happy Exploring!

Significance:This activity will interest your child further in exploring science and will enhance his/her observational and motor skills.

Self Inflating Balloon

Things you will need: cello-tape How to:Using a tape, tape down any length of the line on the floor of your house. Then ask your child to only walk on the line heel-to-toe from start to end. Variations:As your child gets older, you can make the lines difficult by taping down spirals or zig-zag lines or lines at angles. You can also increase the difficulty by creating shapes and linking the shapes together. You can set a timer and ask 4-5 kids to compete. You can also ask your child to walk on the line backwards. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will improve your child’s body coordination and body balancing.

Balance the beam

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: a large cardboard box, socks or ping pong balls How to:This activity is best carried out in groups. First make a few balls using pairs of socks. Next, cut holes of various widths and shapes in the cardboard and assign point values to each hole. Flip the box upside down so that when the sock ball is aimed at the holes, the ball falls into the cardboard box. You can also use ping pong balls for this game. The kid with the maximum score wins the game. Happy Gaming!

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

Sock Bean Bag Toss

Things you will need: bottled water, glass or ceramic bowl, plastic tray, ice cubes, freezer 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 one or two bottles with water and place them into the freezer for two hours. Lay the bottles on their sides for the best results.</li><li>Make sure to remove the bottles from the freezer before the water freezes completely.</li><li>Place a ceramic bowl upside down on a tray to catch the water overage.</li><li>Place an ice cube on top of the ceramic bowl.</li><li>Then pour the water from the bottles slowly and observe the ice form instantly!</li></ol> Why does this happen?The water reaches the freezing temperature quickly when poured over ice cubes. On reaching the freezing temperature, the water forms ice crystals and eventually the entire water in the bottle freezes even before being poured completely. Happy Exploring!

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

Instant Ice

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.

Stack it up

Thing you will need:Large transparent container, toy dinosaurs, water, shells, stones, bowl of hot water, salt, tweezers or something similar which is heavy and can break the ice, blue food colouring (preferably powdered colour)Activity should be done with a group of 5-10 kids. 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 1/3rd of the container with water and freeze it.</li><li>Place a few toys, stones and shells.</li><li>Pour another layer of water above these toys and freeze it again.</li><li>Place remaining toys, stones and shells.</li><li>Pour the last layer of water and freeze it again.</li><li>Place the ice block you prepared out in the open or on a table.</li><li>Mix salt and the blue food colour in sufficient quantity. Sprinkle this mixture on your ice block. You will see that the ice block is starting to melt.</li><li>Pour the hot water over your ice block so that the ice block melts faster.</li><li>Using tweezers break the ice so that you can recover your dinosaur toys, stones and shells.</li><li>Repeat the steps. Add more salt, more hot water, break the ice with tweezers.</li><li>This activity will definitely keep children busy for a good 2 hours. Let them discover how they can recover the toys faster.</li></ol> Note:Carry out this activity in your backyard or veranda so that your house does not get messy. Why does the ice melt by adding salt?Salt helps in melting the ice faster because salt decreases the melting point of ice. The kids also have fun as they see a blue stream of water running down. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity helps children bond well and develop their co-ordination of fine motor skills.

motor skill activities

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