3 years plus

Alive Catholic Early Learning Centres continue to work in partnership with families to provide education, care and support for our children

Alive Catholic Early Learning has created these resources to help families support their child’s learning continuity in an online environment when they are not at our Centres.

In these rapidly changing times – in one sense – nothing changes. We’re still here supporting your children in their learning.

You are not expected to be an educator or teacher – your role is to support your child’s learning and development in any capacity you can. This can be supported by the learning resources we have developed which can be successfully completed in the home. For more information about things you can do to support your child’s move to an online environment, please click here.

If you’re struggling to know how best to support your child – connect with your child’s educator.

Your child’s wellbeing is the most important thing. Your role is simply to make sure that they are healthy, happy and safe.

Go gently. Love your child. Support your educators. Be kind to yourself.

This may be a period of curiosity for your child. They are now a pre-schooler who could be fascinated with the world around them. They might ask lots of questions to try and understand the world around them. Where? What? Who? Why? Your child may start speaking in longer sentences and understanding more complex instructions. They could start forming real friendships and be developing their social skills as they form an understanding rules and taking turns. This could be an exciting time to start exploring the world more by letting them help you with simple tasks, encouraging outdoor play and visiting new places. 

Here are some activities you could do with your child at home:

• Music Maker - this can encourage dancing and a sense of rhythm
• Practise catching, hitting, bouncing and kicking - start with something small and easy to hold like a little bean bag or tennis ball. When spaces aren’t safe for balls, some rolled-up socks can be good for this.
• Make up games that involve different types of movement - get your child to chase bubbles, walk along chalk lines, gather shells and jump over puddles or cracks in the ground.
• Play different kinds of music or make sounds with your voice or instruments - this can encourage dancing and a sense of rhythm.
• Invent some silly walks and runs with your child - you could try running like a monkey, jumping like a bunny and flapping like a bird.
• Learn to ride a bike, scooter or tricycle
• Cosmic Yoga - mindfulness and relaxation for kids which build strength, balance and confidence.
• Go Noodle - inspire children to be active and mindful with a wide range of videos that appeal to kids’ different ages, interests, skills, and abilities.
• Blowing bubbles - blow bubbles and then pop them together.
• Nature Play SA - the Nature Play SA blog provides insights into places to go for adventures, ideas and inspiration for outdoor play and information on local flora and fauna.
• Mother Natured - this free resource from Mother Natured is full of ideas for outside play
• Allow your child to investigate the world around them - by encouraging your child to ask questions, you are engaging your child in STEM. It is never too early to start exploring STEM concepts with your child.
• Go out into nature - collect things like rocks, flowers, leaves, and bugs, and more together.  Bring along binoculars or a magnifying glass and let your child investigate their world on another level!
• Describe what’s around you - talk about what’s happening, for example ‘Look at the water bubbling in the pot. The water is boiling. That means it is very, very hot.’ As your little one gets older, you can encourage them to talk about the things around them and ask them questions, such as ‘What do you think will happen when we drop the cloth in the water?’
• Playing - engaging in the trial and error of play develops your little one’s early critical thinking and reasoning skills and helps them understand how things work. Here are some great toys that encourage STEM learning:
  - Blocks teach geometry, physics and gravity
  - Stacking cups teaches size relationships
  - Building/construction toys (Lego/Duplo, Mobilo, etc.) teach spatial skills, creative thinking
  - Balls teach motion, momentum, and velocity
• Preschool STEAM - Everything you need to know about STEM activities for toddlers, including activities you can do at home
• GreatStart - a list of STEM activities from the Department of Education
• From Engineer to Stay At Home Mum - a list of 30 STEM activities to do at home
• Zoo to You - Watch a livestream of the animals at the Adelaide Zoo or Monarto Safari Park
• Little Scientists at Home - free resource offering great science experiments to do at home 
• Use maths to talk about things happening in everyday life - that car went very fast, this bag is very heavy
• Race toy cars - talk about which one came 1st, 2nd, 3rd
• Arrange toys - this is a good opportunity to discuss which toys are smaller and bigger
• Involve your child in cooking - your child can help stir, pour, fill and mix. This helps your child become familiar with concepts like counting, measuring, adding and estimating
• Go for a nature walk - let your child gather a mix of leaves, sticks, pebbles and other natural items. Your child can sort them into groups based on size, colour, shape or what they do.
• Read stories with numbers or counting - these could include:
  - One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish by Dr Seuss
  - Ten little ladybugs by Melanie Gerth
  - Counting kisses by Karen Katz
  - Ten little fingers and ten little toes by Mem Fox
• Early Childhood Literacy and Numeracy Cards - This set of cards has been developed by the Australian Government to help you support young children in learning to read, write and do maths
• Block play - talk about different shapes and patterns with your child.
• Music Makers -  promote fine and gross motor skills, develop your child’s language skills, build knowledge of taking turns and explore music together.
• Five-finger starfish meditation - a simple way to encourage children to prepare their bodies and breathing, ask your child to hold up one hand in a starfish position (fingers spread wide) and while they gently trace up and down each finger with the other hand, focus on regular breathing at the same time
• Sharing stories from the Bible - another way for you and your family to connect with God and the wonders of His creation
• ‘VeggieTale’ - On Netflix there are ‘VeggieTale’ episodes which present life lessons through a biblical worldview
• Share Grace before mealtimes - ask your children to share Grace before mealtimes just like we do at Alive. Mealtimes with family members also provides a wonderful opportunity to talk about the positive things you are grateful for in your daily lives.
• Lost Sheep - great children’s biblical stories.
• Prayer (How to do a Christian Meditation) - resources and contemplative prayer practices. We can all be part of a shared contemplative response that makes a difference to those around us even if we are physically separated. Social distancing can bring us closer together spiritually. We only need to go deeper. To go deeper we need only to be still. Meditation does both.
• A Lion in the Night – Activity 1 – re-tell a story through dramatic play
• A Lion in the Night – Activity 2 – develop literacy skills through exploring the letter L
• Capacity – develop understanding of volume and early mathematics skills
• Food faces – where does our food come from and what changes when we add ingredients together
• Name hunt – how are symbols used to communicate meaning?
• Nature walk – how do our senses help us to find out about the world?
• Pairs – what strategies help us solve problems?
• Towers – what makes a great construction?
• Obstacle Course - gross motor and cognitive skills development.
• Movement Builds Coordination and Motor Skills - build important muscles and coordination whilst also learning about spatial concepts.
• Making playdough – making play dough is full of literacy and numeracy concepts and builds children’s confidence and involvement.
• Herbs and playdough - by adding herbs to playdough, you can enrich children’s sensory experiences as they observe, touch, smell and maybe taste new materials or textures. 
• Water play for wellbeing - Water play is a sensory experience that can be calming as well as a learning experience.
• Making gloop - learn about measurement, size, the sequence of the recipe, and the way ingredients change as they mix together.
• Playing in the bath - encourage children to experiment pouring and filling, using small containers, sieves, colanders, saucepans as well as sponges and face washers.
• Kinetic Sand - develop skills in estimating, dividing quantities, noticing attributes, and counting.
• Family Tree - family stories enhance children’s sense of identity and where they fit in the world. 
• Keeping in touch with friends - help your child’s literacy skills and understandings as they use their oral language and early writing skills to communicate with friends ‘remotely’.
• Hanging out the washing - hanging out the washing is a great way to incorporate contributing at home while developing important skills such as fine and gross motor development, matching, sorting, grouping, classifying, colour identification, counting.
• Explore my emotions – each video is designed to help children identify big emotions and guide them to name and understand emotions in different ways.
• Same and Different - noticing differences between objects, people, and places is part of child development and young children are remarkably good at observing differences in the world.