"Mom, I am bored!" — Could you count how many times a day your toddler says this?
Children are balls of energy and thrive when they get to exert themselves in fun and challenging ways. But how do you keep coming up with new games for them to play?
We started our Co-Create series to help you out with this. Each week, we partner with a mom blogger to bring you an exciting DIY game that your child will love. All our activities that are development-focused and super easy to make!
From making DIY Popsicle Puzzles to shearing a sheep's wool, we've had some amazing games so far. Here is our 13th Co-Create activity, Measure It!
Benefits of Measure It
This Co-Create activity is by Aisha Chandarana, a DIY Blogger and mom to four-year-old Ninaad. You can see her previous activities here.
Measure It is the perfect at-home activity to help your child develop number-related cognitive skills. The benefits of playing this game include:
1. Strengthens number and counting skills: Counting the manipulatives you use such as beads, buttons, or pebbles will help your child learn numbers and their sequence.
2. Improves ability to understand measurement: Placing these beads or stickers all the way up to the frogs will show your child what measurements are.
3. Develops hand-eye coordination: Moving the beads or stickers and placing them one after the other at precise spots on the strips will hone their hand-eye coordination.
4. Strengthens estimation: Being able to guess how many manipulatives they will need for each strip will sharpen their ability to make estimations.
5. Hones fine motor skills: Picking up and moving the manipulatives will strengthen their pincer grasp and fine motor skills.
Creating Measure It
Age group:
This activity can be enjoyed by children between 3 to 6 years.
Materials required:
1. A piece of cardboard/paper strips.
2. A marker or sketch pens.
3. Manipulatives such as beads, buttons, pebbles, or leaves.
4. Number stickers (optional).
How to make the game:
1. Cut rectangular strips from cardboard or paper, approximately the size shown in the image above.
2. From the baseline, draw and colour frogs or bugs at different levels on each of the cards.
3. In these pictures, you will see 3 cards where the height a frog jumps is to be measured and 3 where the water sprayed from a whale is to be measured.
Playing Measure It
The aim of the game is to arrange your manipulatives from the base line all the way up to the frog or the highest point of the water sprayed by the whale. Here, we've used colourful cardboard cutouts that are accessible and simple to make and help maintain uniformity.
Once your child has completed that, ask them to count the manipulatives and stick corresponding numbers on each strip. They can also write the number manually instead of using stickers.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this activity. If you would like to share the experience of your child playing this game, tag us at #CoCreatewithshumee. Stay home and stay safe!
Aisha Chandarana creates DIY activities with cardboard and nature elements, providing amazing play experiences for children. You can follow her @toontots on Instagram.