Ravina Sewani

How to:Help your child to make a chain of domino bricks in various designs. Arrange the bricks in such a way that when you push the first brick, all the following bricks start toppling. Observe the surprise on child’s face when they see this happening. Fun fact:To make this game more interesting, you can design letters or numbers or an image using the bricks. When all the bricks topple, the letter/number can be observed clearly. Happy Gaming!

Significance:This will improve your child’s understanding of how physics works and also their imagination and motor skills.

Domino chain

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: baby oil or vegetable oil, watercolours or food colouring, pipettes or droppers How to:With the help of your child, set the activity as follows:<ol><li>Take several cups of water and mix different watercolours or food colour in them.</li><li>Fill a cup up to half way with oil.</li><li>Using different droppers take different coloured water from cups and drop them in the oil cup slowly.</li><li>Observe - The coloured water droplets will settle at the bottom and will not mix with the oil.</li></ol> Explanation:For younger kids, there is no need of a detailed explanation. For older kids, you can explain them that oil molecules are only attracted to other oil molecules and water molecules are attracted to water molecules. So they don’t mix together. The reason the coloured water droplets settle at the bottom is because water is more dense than oil.

Significance:This activity will introduce the concept of attraction between molecules in science to your child.

Oil and Water exploration

How to:Hundreds and Thousands of grids for word search are available online. You can get them printed of the required difficulty level depending on your child’s age. The grids of this game are either rectangular or square. The grid consists of letters of words placed randomly. The goal of the game is to find all the words hidden in the grid and mark them. The words can be arranged horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Usually such grids come with a list of the words hidden in the grid. This list can help your child find the words easily. Fun fact:You can level up the game by not providing the list of the words hidden or by setting up a timer.&nbsp; Happy Gaming!

Significance:This activity will enhance your child’s observational skills and concentration.

Word search/ Word find

Things you will need:Large container to freeze ice, water, water colours, paint brushes, salt. 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>Pour water in a large container and keep it for freezing over night. Freeze a block of ice.</li><li>Sprinkle salt over it.</li><li>Using paint brushes, paint colours of rainbow on the ice block.</li><li>See the water runoff from melted ice in the form of a rainbow.</li></ol> Note:Carry out this activity either in your backyard or veranda. You don’t want your insides of the house looking like a rainbow! Happy Gaming!

Significance:The child learns properties of water and also melting, mixing of colours is so fun.

Rainbow Ice Melting

Things you will need: Just the thinking ability of your minds How to:<ol><li>You and your child can come up with as many words as possible which when spoken do not result in the meeting of upper and lower lip. Example of such words are: Gift (touching of teeth and lips, but both the lips don’t touch), teeth, hair, knee, eyes, door, chair, clock, sun, earth, noodles, coffee</li><li>Now, ask your child(ren) to come up with such words.</li><li>Next, to level up the difficulty, you can ask your child(ren) to think of entire sentences where the lips don’t meet. Go on have fun!</li></ol> Happy Gaming!

Significance:This will enhance your child’s vocabulary and pronunciation.

Words where the lips don’t meet!

How to:For this activity you will need 3 paper cups and one small ball. You start the game by placing the ball under one cup. Instruct on your child to keep on this cup. Now, you have to shuffle the three cups while your child has to keep track of the cup with the ball. After about 30 seconds of shuffling, ask your child to identify the cup with the ball. Happy Gaming!

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

Magic cup game

Things you will need: large jigsaw puzzle with pieces separated How to:This is another version of scavenger hunt. Hide the pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle around the room and ask the kids to hunt for them. Ask the kids to bring the pieces back one at a time to fit together into the completed puzzle. Happy Hunting!

Significance:This activity will enhance your child's communication, observation, and analytical skills.

Puzzle Piece Hunt

Things you will need: paper and pencil How to:You will have to write these words down on a piece of paper for your child to do this activity. Ask your child to unscramble these words of emotions: <ol><li>PHAYP</li><li>DAM</li><li>ASD</li><li>GYRNA</li><li>YOJ</li><li>EARF</li><li>PRISURES</li><li>YHS</li><li>DESUFNOC</li><li>VELO</li></ol> Note: Emotions help children to express themselves better. While they are unscrambling the words, you can also ask them to make those expressions so they will have fun doing this activity. You can think of more such words depending on your child's vocabulary. Happy Gaming!

observation skill activities

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