Manav Rachna International School Sector -14, Faridabad Session-2015-16 Parent Involvement Activities Dear Parent Summer holidays are here again to give us respite from the scorching heat. We hope that our kids would enjoy their vacation time and learn through their surroundings and experiences. As we believe in experiential learning all the activities have been designed keeping in mind the child’s learning in their immediate environment. Children love to do things on their own, be it messing up with colours, creating abstract art on blank sheets, innovating with clay, sand or blocks and we need to give them an environment congenial for learning. So parents, have fun doing all the activities with your kiddos and capture some precious moments while doing these activities and paste the picture in the scrap book and send them to school for us to cherish those precious moments. Activities guidelines Language Development  Introduce different story books, picture books to your child and discuss the things seen in the pictures.  Narrate simple stories to your child, ask to recall some characters and incidents of the story by asking simple questions related to the story.  Encourage them to speak magic words like ‘thank you’, ‘please’, ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’. Social Development  Encourage your child to converse freely with visitors, relatives who come over to the house.  Encourage your child to help you in laying the table for dinner.  Teach the child to keep his/her toys and belongings back in their place.  Plant a garden of herbs and veggies.  Blend your own smoothie.  Go for picnics with friends or have a tea party or pajama party at home. Cognitive Development 1. Take a walk and hunt for colours. 2. Do Socks Matching Activity 3. Counting fingers and toes Help your child to make their hand or foot print, then help them to count their fingers or toes 1 to 5. Make a pair - how many fingers and toes now? Once the prints are dry write the numbers 1-10 in pen on each finger or toe and then your child has a their own, personal number chart to stick on their bedroom wall. Pretend Play  Go shopping Help your child make a list and some paper money and go shopping! Use cardboard for the list and utilise old boxes and tins as products to fill the shelves - you can even go one step further and create your own brand of shop food. Once your shop is ready your child can decide who is to be shopkeeper and who will go shopping. You can swap the roles around and make it fun by pretending to be different characters in the shop. Little hands at work  Noisy basket Children love to hear and make noises - it's comforting to the senses and gives them a great deal of satisfaction when they experience a new or interesting noise - especially if it's made by them! You can fill the basket with a variety of items - a bunch of keys, jars with beads in, bells, an old battery operated toothbrush, anything that makes a pleasing sound is great to include. Try adding new objects each week to create new sounds. Jars are ideal for filling with different objects such as hair grips, mini fridge magnets, lentils and badges. Help your child identify the sounds, thus enhancing their listening skills. Nature basket You can't beat a good walk around the garden for some perfect treasure basket contents. Pine cones, bark, leaves (contrasting in colour and texture), grass, rocks, seashells, pebbles, logs, acorns and seed are all perfect additions. At first your little one will simply want to touch, smell and hold them but as they grow older the nature basket will become more of a teaching tool to increase their understanding of the world around them. Let’s get creative  Paint with ice by freezing ice cube trays with washable tempera paint.  Make Shape Sandwiches  Hand Print babies and mothers hand.(big and small concept)  Make paper boats and race them in a kiddie pool using straws to propel them.  Play with the hose.  Do noodle painting.  Do spray Painting.        Kindly refer these suggested sites and do age-appropriate activities www.kidszone.ws/thematic/summer.htm www.funbrain.com www.enchantedlearning.com www.pitara.comvication.shtml www.sparklebox.com www.starfall.com  www.jollyphonics.com Wishing you all happy times together!!!