We know that when the kids are busy enjoying themselves, they’re open to lots of lovely learning experiences. That’s why we’re a dab hand at adding a bit of educational oomph to all of our activities. The children don’t realise of course, learning couldn’t possibly be this much fun, right?

The good news is that adding an extra element of learning to activities isn’t difficult to do. It doesn’t need to involve huge amounts of preparation or planning. If you want to give it a go, here are 6 easy-peasy activities you can do at home that’ll get kids learning on the sly.



1. Kitchen Maths

The kitchen is the perfect place to work on maths. That’s right, grab your apron and your ingredients and get ready for some number work. From basic counting, simple measuring to working out cooking times, the kitchen is brimming with mathematical opportunities that are oh-so easy to do. Counting out cupcake cases or deciding which size bowl you’ll need for all the cake ingredients is a wonderful way to get little ones remembering their numbers and thinking about size and quantities. Bring in pattern work with fruit kebabs, layering fruit in colourful sequences or get them talking about shapes as you cut cookies into circles, squares, rectangles and stars. For older children measuring or weighing ingredients and doubling (or halving) recipes is a good real-life way to bring maths into everyday use. Our top tip? Try a bit of subtraction once cooking is done. If I have 10 cookies and I eat one (or two), how many are left? We think this is the best kind of maths!

2. Curate a Museum

Take a wonderful deep dive into your child’s world by helping them create a museum of the things they love. The museum could be full of treasures they’ve found, their favourite cuddly toys or simply things that are important to them.

Start with selecting the items to display and get your child to label them – either by name if it’s stuffed animals or even by animal type. You could research a bit about the animals on the computer to add to your description and include facts about where they come from or what they eat. If your museum is a display of artwork and craft pieces, you could get your child to add exciting descriptions of the work or create display towers for special items to sit on. Let your child bring it all to life with entry tickets or a colourful poster of the museum. Once everything is ready encourage your child to walk you (or other family members) around the museum, explaining all the precious items in detail.

3. Have a Country-Inspired Meal

Turn the dining room or kitchen table into a restaurant and explore the delights of a country-inspired meal. Perfect for role play fun and a lovely way to introduce new taste, smells and textures from different kinds of cuisines. There are tons of learning opportunities in this simple activity. Pick a country that you want to explore and investigate popular local dishes together. Select a meal to make in your restaurant and let your child draw up the menu listing the ingredients. Give your restaurant a name and take the opportunity to look up simple phrases like ‘hello’, ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ in your chosen country’s language so you can use these when the restaurant is in action. You could even decorate your restaurant table in colours linked to the country’s flag. From Spanish tapas to Chinese noodles eaten with chopsticks, this is one restaurant you’ll definitely want to tip the waiter!



4. Turn Their Favourite Story into a Play

Bring their favourite story to life by turning it into a play. It’s a brilliant way to build on their background knowledge of a story they love and inspires deeper thinking and creativity. Encourage your child to summarise the plot and list out the key characters. From making outfits to preparing an area to perform, this is an activity the whole family will enjoy! Get your child to think about the order of the story and talk about the beginning, middle and end. Select props to use and discuss how feelings can be expressed with facial expressions and actions. Talk about what the character is thinking and feeling in the story and how it would come to life on the stage. Older children? You could even encourage them to write their very own script!



5. Freestyle Art Fun

There’s nothing better than the freedom of expression that art provides so it’s no wonder that it’s one of our favourite activities to do with kids of all ages. Not only is art marvellous for building those fine motor skills it’s full of super sensory fun too. Allowing little ones to get stuck in to squishing paint, experimenting with different types of materials and textures is wonderful not only for their creative expression but it’s a great way to increase their vocabulary and describing skills. For older children art is brilliant for well-being and self-expression. Making something perfectly unique to you is an incredibly important way of making sense of the world around you. So let them loose with a multitude of art supplies and let them go freestyle! From experimenting with colours to abstract patterns and unique designs, getting active in art will not only make them feel good but they’ll be learning loads too!



6. Leaf Identification science

Autumn is the perfect time to go on one of our favourite activities - a leaf hunt! Using natural materials in activities is a wonderful way to expand learning! Wrap up warm, pull on your welly boots and head out to find a variety of leaves in all colours, shapes and sizes. Kids will love crunching through leaves hunting for different leaf varieties. Then bring them home to count and categorise your leaves by colour or shape. You could even look at what tree the leaf has fallen from and compare the similarities and differences in shapes and patterns. Use your foraged leaves for paint printing, making leaf people or threading them on to string in a pattern to make autumn inspired bunting for the garden.

Getting involved in play is a wonderful way to bolster your child’s development, especially when you can sneakily extend their learning too! Using simple activities and games that encourage critical thinking and creativity is really easy to do and is brilliant fun for your child. So why not tap into your child’s natural curiosity and give one of these activities a try? Who knows what wonderful learning fun you’ll have on the way!