With extended periods of home-based learning, parents may have run out of ideas to keep their children engaged at home. Besides entertaining them with YouTube videos or video games, you can try your hand at making some DIY learning resources to keep your child meaningfully engaged at home. Let our teachers at the SPD Building Bridges EIPIC Centres show you how.

DIY Light Box

What you need:

• An A4 size box file
• Aluminium paper
• LED fairy light
• Translucent paper

The light box provides an inviting surface for children to engage in activities such as writing. As children are attracted to the light glow from the box, it can help to calm them down while they do their work on the light box. For children with visual difficulties, a light box can help them to focus and motivate them to use their sense of sight. It also helps children to become more aware of light, colours and objects. Our teacher from SPD@Jurong explains more in this video.

DIY Fire Truck

What you need:

• Big cardboard box
• Paint, glue, scissors

Engage in pretend play with your child through the DIY fire truck. With the truck, your child can pretend to be a firefighter, drive the fire truck into the city and help save lives! This helps them to connect with real-world jobs, practise their directions and coordination, as well as balancing and gross motor skills. Just open up the base of the box, paint the truck, and you’re good to go. Watch the video below to see how our teachers use the truck to engage our children.

DIY Theatre

What you need:

• Big cardboard box (we used a smart TV box for this, but if you do not have a big box, see below for some alternatives you can do with common household items)
• Paper
• Paint, glue, scissors

The DIY process of the theatre provides a fun opportunity to engage your child in the building process from the start to finish. For a start, get your child to paint dark and light shades of brown on rectangular pieces of paper. Next, get them to paste the painted paper on the cardboard box to give it a brick-walled effect. At the back of the box, you can cut out an opening which serves as a door for children to enter and exit the performance space.

Once the theatre is completed, you can start to use it as a stage for dramatic play. Besides story-telling and puppet play, you can also engage your child in pretend play by transforming the space into a fast-food restaurant, supermarket, or an aquarium, just to name a few. The options are endless.

Don’t have a big cardboard box to build a theatre? Improvise by using the sofa or two chairs placed side by side with a blanket or curtain draped over them to create a similar theatre effect! You can also use old socks to make hand puppets.

Add these resources to your list of stay-home activities and have a fun and fulfilling June holidays with your child!