5 Entertaining and Educational Rainy-Day Activities for Kids
What do you do when bad weather has your family cooped up indoors? Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to keep your kids entertained and educate them at the same time! The internet is full of handy resources, from children’s exercise videos to online music lessons, that can provide endless ideas for indoor fun. Here are some great activities to keep kids (and yourself!) entertained when the stormy weather strikes.
Get Dancing
Kids love to dance. So, what’s better than encouraging them to get some physical activity by dancing to music videos in the living room? Play their favorite songs and let them go wild, or hop on YouTube and pull up some videos that teach children popular dance moves. You can even find plenty of children’s exercise videos online that your kids can follow along with. Alternatively, children’s yoga videos are a great way to calm them down.
Bring Out the Little Musician in Them
Thanks to the internet, you no longer have to enroll your child in expensive music lessons when they want to learn an instrument. There are tutorials on YouTube that can teach you to play almost any song on any instrument. You can also look up fun children’s games that can teach kids the fundamentals of music theory and help them learn to read sheet music. There are even programs available to help with ear training so your kids can learn to pick out the notes in a song and sing in tune.
Encourage Their Creativity
Drawing and painting are wonderful pastimes for kids that provide more mental benefits than you may think. According to The Artful Parent, art contributes to fine motor development and helps kids enhance their problem-solving skills. It’s also a valuable way for kids to process the world around them and express their feelings. There are many videos and free online art classes that can teach kids the basics of perspective, shading, and color mixing. These can help give kids greater confidence to continue their love for art as they grow older.
Practice Maths with Real-Life Applications
Parents are always looking for ways to help supplement the education their children are receiving in school. Practicing maths at home by applying concepts to real-life situations is a great way to do this. This can help children discover the importance and usefulness of maths in their lives. For example, Imagine Learning recommends taking your kid to the grocery store and encouraging them to estimate the total cost of all your groceries before you reach the checkout.
You can also use a rainy day as an excuse to get your kids in the kitchen. While baking with your kids, teach them the maths involved in measuring, multiplying or dividing recipes to produce more or less food, converting measurements, understanding ratios, and calculating cooking times. You can also find online games that focus on the real-world applications of mathematics.
Break Out the Science Experiments
Being stuck inside is also a great opportunity to turn your kitchen into a science lab. Learning science through hands-on experiments encourages kids to be curious and to test their hypotheses about the world. For example, you can try making a glass of lava that resembles an old-school lava-lamp with just a few items you probably already have in your kitchen. This can teach your kids about the interactions between common household objects.
The next time it rains, be prepared with various activities to keep your kids from getting restless. Take advantage of rainy days to educate your kids while providing hours of entertainment. This is also a great way to bond with your family and have some fun yourself!
(Our thanks to Jenny Wise http://specialhomeeducator.com/ for this great article!)
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Safer Internet Day takes place next Tuesday, 7th February 2023. Sadly more than 1 in 4 young people in Ireland have experienced cyberbullying, yet only 60% of victims tell their parents. As teenagers and children spend more time on the internet, ensuring it's a safe space is ever more important. To encourage conversation about life online and help parents keep their children safe, I'd like to share a free resource created by Switcher.ie. It's a comprehensive guide which includes things like:
I thought it may be useful to share the link to the guide - https://switcher.ie/broadband/guides/how-to-keep-your-children-safe-online/ - which you can include on your website ahead of Safer Internet Day, to help parents and children who may need some extra support. We've also put together some handy top tips you can use on your website: 10 tips to keep your children safe online
- How to reduce the risks online
- How to recognise cyber bullying and grooming
- How to educate children on cyber safety
- How to set up parental controls on devices
- Talk about it:Make time to chat about online risks and how to use the internet safelyas soon as they're old enough to go online. Encourage your children to speak to you about what they view online and empower them to act if they're worried about anything.
- Recognise the risks: Educate yourself about the potential dangers children could face online so it’s easier to spot warning signs. Get to know what platforms your children use, and learn about dangers such as phishing, grooming and cyberbullying.
- Teach the do's and don'ts: Be clear about the non-negotiables. For example, teach your child not to share personal details or photos with strangers and instruct them not to click on links to unknown websites or texts. Do encourage your child to question what they see and only accept friend requests from people they know.
- Spot the signs: Pay attention to your children's behaviour whilst on and off their devices. Being alert to changes in your child can help prevent problems from escalating. Some warning signs are withdrawing from friends or family, sleeping and eating problems or losing interest in previously loved hobbies or interests.
- Set boundaries:Let your children know what they can and can't do on the internet from the get-go. Agree on what devices they can use, when, and how long they can spend online. As they get older, explaining and negotiating boundaries may be more effective.
- Take 'parental' control: These ready-made boundaries put parents in control of what children can see online. They can be set up through your internet provider at device level to block specific websites and filter out inappropriate content.
- Be social media savvy: The popularity of social media apps like TikTok and Snapchat makes it harder to keep track of what your child is accessing online. Fortunately, each social media platform has its own privacy settings and safety tips for parents. Check them out before you let children have their own accounts.
- Protect from harm:Install antivirus software on family devices to minimise the risk of cyber attacks or scams. Use two-factor authentication (2FA) for extra security on your online accounts. This can also stop children from signing into services they're not allowed to use.
- Set a great example: You're the greatest 'influencer' in your children's lives when they're young. Limiting your time online, discussing dangers you've come across, and questioning what you view can help reinforce the rules you are setting for your children and, in turn, influence their online behaviour.
- Seek support:The more you learn about online dangers, the better equipped you'll be to handle them. There are some great resources like webwise.ie, internetmatters.organd cybersafekids.ie to help you recognise and reduce online dangers and seek advice if you think your child is experiencing cyberbullying or is at risk online.
Short videos on the Importance of Play have recently launched which was a collaboration between North Central CFSN and Lifestart Services. Volume 1 https://youtu.be/xl2F2vZXhbg Volume 2 https://youtu.be/OOy4lmWggtM Volume 3 https://youtu.be/tmv40--l7fA Volume 4 https://youtu.be/Wr9bfTWddts Volume 5 https://youtu.be/7HLkBXvVTFE Volume 6 https://youtu.be/NuUXb51qZY0
Infant Mental Health Awareness Week runs from June 13th-19th.
This week provides an opportunity to focus attention on the wellbeing, social and emotional development of our babies and young children. It highlights the importance of early relationships and a relationship based approach to interventions with infants and families. As our understanding of IMH and its evidence base develops, so also does our knowledge of how to apply this knowledge and an ‘IMH lens’ to interactions with infants, parents and caregivers in health and social services.
What is infant mental health?
Infant Mental health (IMH) refers to the healthy social and emotional development of Infants starting at conception up to three years of age.
The first 1000 days of life are recognised as a critical period of opportunity to support infant mental health. Decades of research have shown that it is the quality of the early caregiver relationship that is a significant determinant of the infant’s healthy social and emotional development and in turn physical health, right up to adulthood.
The National Healthy Childhood Programme has embedded IMH as the foundation of the development of its resources and in the approach of the delivery of the universal child health service. This embedding of key messages can be seen in the My Child suite of books (www.mychild.ie/books) and also on www.MyChild.ie where key messages around bonding and relationship building have been embedded for the parent/caregiver.
In clinical practice the topic of IMH has been included for the first time in the National Standardised Child Health Record. To build on this, the National Healthy Childhood Programme have just completed a suite of three eLearning units which are now available on HSEland for healthcare practitioners / caregivers who are working with children and families.
Throughout the week you will see videos and key IMH messaging being promoted on the HSE MyChild social media pages ( Facebook / Instagram ). Keep an eye out in the National Newspapers for articles from our experts also. (IrishTimes article)
In addition The National Healthy Childhood Programme have developed a series of ten practical videos with HSE expert advice which are now available on YouTube and on the relevant pages on the www.mychild.ie website.
These videos (2-3 minutes each) are aimed at parents/guardians of children (0 – 3 years).
These new video resources are available here while lots more expert advice for every step of pregnancy, baby and toddler health can also be found at www.mychild.ie
There are a suite of posters available focusing on the promotion of IMH messaging to order from healthy.childhood@hse.ie