The COVID-19 lockdown in India may have ended, but most people can still feel its effects. It is especially true for parents who are raising a toddler. Since schools are closed and will not open until we have an effective vaccine for the virus, parents face several challenges in taking care of their child at home. They may be trying their best to teach him new things and keep him entertained, but there’s only so much they can do at home.
Usually, these kids indulge in fun games and interactive activities in a preschool in Pune or other parts of the country. Therefore, parents have to recreate a similar atmosphere at home to engage the child and improve their sensory and motor skills. Here are some of the best indoor games to keep your child entertained and active amidst the pandemic:
Keep the Balloon Up
It may sound like an absurd indoor game, but it works wonders in keeping children entertained and physically active. Try this game by blowing up some balloons and asking your kid to prevent it from falling on the ground for long as he can, and see how your little champion doesn’t disappoint you.
Touch and Feel Boxes
It is an excellent indoor game that teaches your child to develop a sense of touch when everyone is focusing on the sense of sight. This game trains their mind on collecting information about an object by feeling it rather than seeing it. To start with, put several smaller objects into a container that is easily accessible to your child. Then, ask your child to close their eyes, pick an item from the box, and guess what it is. This simple but entertaining game can also help your child develop cognitive abilities. Many preschools in Pune include this game into their play programmes because of its effectiveness in training a child’s brain.
Sorting
It is an easy-to-pull game that can help your child cultivate critical thinking. In the game, children analyse, compare, and describe different objects based on their characteristics. You can create three or more small bins to keep different shapes, coloured-objects or textured items and ask your child to sort every object based on their colour, shape or texture. For example, red-coloured objects go into one bin, and triangular items go into another bin, and so on. If your child is not going to a preschool because of the pandemic, you might want to teach them this excellent indoor game.
Magical Mama
Be your child’s magician with Magical Mama. All you need to do is place a coin under one of three cups and just shuffle the cups around. Now, ask your child to guess the cup that holds the coin and see how they leave no cup unturned until they get it right. This game enables children to enhance their cognitive skills and contraction since getting right in this game requires you to focus on the cup with the coin.
Puzzles
Help your child make the most out of the pandemic situation by introducing them to puzzle games. These games train children’s cognitive, creative, and problem-solving parts of the brain. The best part is that you can buy these games from a store and let your child play or solve on their own while you focus on your daily errands. Puzzles are very useful in developing a child’s brain, and most preschools usually leverage puzzles in their curricula.
We are experiencing a ‘new normal’ with little idea of when schools will reopen. However, we can foster a learning environment at home to help our children develop new skills and interests to prevent any learning gap. This will definitely help them adjust faster to the best preschool in Pune.