Challenge: Every Child ready to Read- Playing challenge

Play helps your child think symbolically, one item represents another. Dramatic play gives your child background knowledge essential for reading, and helps them understand the order of stories or how stories work. It also helps support socio-emotional learning, essential for when they enter school. It can teach them resilience, cooperation, and patience. Choose 5 activities to complete the challenge.

When you complete 5 tasks, you will earn 5 points and a badge.

two children playing with buckets of water in the grass
Task

Sit together on the floor and pretend you are in an airplane or rocket ship. What sorts of things do you see?

Pretend to be different animals and only do things that this animals would do. Make the noises, walk and pretend to eat like this animal would.

Play follow the leader. Take turns being the leader!

Play with building blocks and make different types of buildings. Can those blocks be anything else? Pretend the blocks are something different!

Play the freeze game, a fun anticipation game. These types of games help kids understand the future and work on their prediction skills, key in learning how stories work!

Play Peek a Boo! This is a fun anticipation game for your baby or toddler. Use your hands, a scarf or favorite blanket. These types of games help kids understand the future and work on their prediction skills, key in learning how stories work!

Play the hot and cold game: Hide an object from your child and when the they are close you say hot, when they are far you say cold. Switch off being the hider and the finder.

Blow bubbles together. Switch blowing the bubbles and playing in the bubbles.

Make different animal noises and pretend to be different animals.

Recite the rhyme Humpty Dumpty with baby or toddler on lap. When Humpty Dumpty falls pretend your child is falling, when all the king's horses and all the king's men come bounce your child up and down like they are on a horse.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again- REPEAT 3 times