Whether it’s term time and children are in school or home-schooling, or its the school holidays, there is a wealth of help and support online for extra learning. Children can find it hard to retain any hard-won literacy or numeracy skills if they have any break from learning, which doesn’t help their confidence either.
Children get bored (naturally), so here are some simple, low-cost ideas to keep them occupied and their brains ticking over this Winter.
The rules:
1. Keep it simple – invent a quick or ‘lite’ version of a more complex game where everyone has a manageable degree of difficulty. (These adaptations work well for players with shorter attention spans).
2. Aim for a ‘little and often’ approach – short bursts work better for everyone.
3. Free online resources are brilliant, and children will learn more if you try and stay engaged with them throughout the activity.
4. You have our permission to have fun too!
Choose activities that encourage specific numeracy, literacy and kinaesthetic learning.
Numeracy: On phones and tablets we like https://www.coolmath4kids.com which is free and has loads of competitive games that children and adults can play.
Literacy: Wordsearches are fun and great for literacy training. Find free word search apps, we especially like pictoword, wordcircle and wordscapes (free to download on android on apple), or https://www.games.co.uk/game/word-connect for similar PC version
Kinaesthetic: PC based games use a mouse and encourage hand-eye coordination. We like – https://www.games.co.uk/game/word-connect
https://www.memozor.com/memory-games/for-kids
https://www.memozor.com/memory-games/for-kids
It doesn’t all have to be screen-based! Memory and observation games work best between real people and don’t eat battery life or data. If you need inspiration, we find these work well – https://www.happyclicks.net/memory-games/index.php
https://www.memozor.com/memory-games/for-kids
At home:
Most children love baking, and it encourages lots of different skills.
Baking doesn’t have to be edible! Make salt dough Christmas decorations, messages for Santa or an entire alphabet to practise all three types of skill. Popcorn strings make brilliant tree decorations and are great for working little hands and for counting activities – https://unsophisticook.com/salt-dough-recipe/
Board games: Dust off traditional board games that offer lots of opportunities for thinking, learning and participation.
Out and about: You can make up your own memory games and stories where each player adds a new line to the story, the next person has to recite the story up to their part, add their own line and so on. Matching pairs of cards/ pictures and so on are also good and introduces a kinaesthetic element too.
Of course, in a few days, a man with a red sack may bring some respite for the ‘boredom’ factor, but the best news is that once you’ve got a few learning games up your sleeve, they work all year round, not just at Christmas!
We’re always happy to give information and guidance to parents so if you have any concerns about your child’s learning, please get in touch:
Liz Martin – Kip McGrath (Hull East – Holderness Road Hull) hulleast@kipmcgrath.co.uk
C-J Lingard – Kip McGrath (Hull West – Anlaby) hullwest@kipmcgrath.co.uk
Season’s Greetings!
C-J & Liz
Hull East Centre Director, Liz Martin, is a Specialist Dyslexia Teacher and Assessor. She has a Post Graduate Certificate in Difficulties in Literacy Development (Dyslexia) and has a current practising certificate with PATOSS. Liz also has experience in teaching and supporting children and young people with Dyspraxia, Visual Stress and ADHD.
Hull West Centre Director, C-J Lingard, holds a Master of Social Science degree and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. C-J’s teaching experience has taken her across the globe and into a diverse range of teaching environments. Kip McGrath Hull West offers tuition for primary and secondary students in English and Maths.
Find out more on the Kip McGrath website here.
A big Mumbler thanks to Kip McGrath for writing this useful guest article.
