Creativity and other learning activities

On this page you will find some activities that your child can do to support their creativity or to improve their life skills around the house. These are intended to be fun and to be a way of spending time together on household chores that will still need doing over the time we are in isolation.

Play Dough Recipe

Here is a great recipe to make play dough

Ingredients

1 cup flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp cooking oil Olive oil or vegetable oil
1 cup water
food coloring

Instructions

In a large bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients (flour, salt, cream of tartar) and mix well.
Mix food coloring with your water first. Then add the vegetable oil and water with food coloring to a large pot. Mix together.
Add the dry ingredients to your pot and mix well.
Cook over low to medium heat until the dough starts to form and becomes dry.
Once it starts to form a ball together and looks fully cooked, take off the heat. Let the dough cool first before touching.
Once cool, knead the dough for 5 minutes to make the dough soft.
Soak the pot in hot water with dishwashing liquid to make it easier to clean.

Notes

If your dough is not soft, continue kneading for another 5 minutes. If you find it is still too dry add a little bit more oil and knead in.

Oobleck

Want to have fun with physics and even "walk on water"? Try making a mixture of cornstarch and water called oobleck. It makes a great science project or is just fun to play with.

Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid; it has properties of both liquids and solids. You can slowly dip your hand into it like a liquid, but if you squeeze the oobleck or punch it, it will feel solid. The name oobleck comes from the Dr. Seuss book, “Bartholomew and the Oobleck.” In the story, oobleck, a gooey green substance, fell from the sky and wreaked havoc in the kingdom.

Making oobleck is easy. Here's a recipe:

Oobleck ingredients

1 part water
1.5 to 2 parts cornflour
Small amount of food coloring (optional)

Mix ingredients

Start with the water in a bowl (or wading pool!) and add the cornflour a bit at a time.
Keep stirring until it has a gooey consistency. You may want to use your hands.
When the oobleck is just right, slowly add food coloring, if you want. This can be a challenge to get it mixed properly.
Play with it.

Things to do with oobleck

Grab a handful and squeeze it. Let it ooze through your fingers.
Make a puddle and quickly drag your fingers through it.
Put it into a plastic container and shake it or quickly bump it against a table.
Jab at the oobleck and then slowly let your finger sink in.
Roll some oobleck into a ball. It becomes solid, but when you stop moving it, it will melt back into your hand.

Build a blanket fort in the house out of blankets and furniture. Have a picnic in there with other family members or with teddy bears, dolls or toys.

Use lego or blocks to create a zoo, city, farm, shopping centre, road etc.

Teach your child how to cook a simple meal on their own. It may be scrambled eggs on toast, a toasted sandwich, a simple pasta dish. Take a photo and send to Mrs Cowie.

Teach your child how to make their own bed from scratch. This means taking off the dirty sheets, putting on clean sheets and pillowcases, and then turning the washing machine on to wash the dirty sheets.

Fold a load of washing together with your child and have them put them away in their own drawers.

Spend some time doing puzzles together.

Help your child choose a category and then find things that fit in that category. Some examples could be: things outside shaped like an oval, things outside that are brown, things that are natural, things made of plastic/wood/metal etc.

Use a hammer and nails, wood glue etc to create something with your child.

Build a campfire or use the BBQ to cook a sausage on a stick over a flame. You could follow it up with marshmallows too!

Have your child select one of the chores around the house such as mopping, vacuuming, toilet cleaning etc and teach them how to do it.

Find a 30 day Lego challenge online and have fun creating something new each day with your child.

Play some board games or card games with your child. Don't let them win, teach them about how it is usually a game of luck and how to deal with losing or winning.

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