These classes are revered for their regular and relaxed atmosphere, where young children (18 to 30 months) can play, learn, and mingle with each other in the presence of their parents or caregivers. This environment minimises a child’s innate fear of separation and encourages them to explore beyond their comfort zones.
If you’re on the fence about the value such experiences can offer, here are the top 5 most engaging educational activities for playgroup children to benefit from!
Activity 1: Sensory Play
Encouraging children to explore the world in a nurturing environment is one of the fundamental cornerstones of a playgroup class. The curriculum is designed to facilitate shared experiences between children and their closest bond: family. One way this is promoted is through sensory experiences.
Utilising all five senses, this type of activity aims to develop enhanced language and motor skills among children. More specifically, it helps with two important senses that are often overlooked: proprioception and the vestibular system.
- Proprioception is how we know where our body parts are and how much effort to use when holding, pushing, or lifting things.
- The vestibular system helps us keep our balance and stay steady when moving.
Activities like interacting with sensory bins, playing with slime, or singing along to music are great ways to nurture these senses while having fun! What’s more, the benefits of these activities for playgroup children go beyond the surface. Sensory play is proven to help build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which can help your child complete complex tasks.
Going further, sensory play in a playgroup setting offers a wide range of other benefits for your child’s development. It supports language skills by encouraging children to describe their actions and feelings, helping them learn new words and ways to communicate.
Through activities like building, pouring, or playing with materials, it strengthens fine motor skills, while gross motor skills are enhanced through movements like crawling, jumping, and running. Sensory play also promotes cognitive growth by fostering problem-solving and experimentation, all while helping children regulate their emotions and stay calm. Additionally, it encourages social interaction by facilitating an environment where kids can communicate, adapt, and collaborate with their peers. This makes sensory play during playgroup sessions an inclusive and enriching experience for all.
Types of Sensory Play
Sensory play is one of the most popular buzz words among 21st century early childhood educators. But how is it applied in a practical setting? Here are a few sensory play ideas for toddlers:
1. Playing with Slime
How it’s done: Provide your child with a blob of slime to stretch, mold, and squish. You can add tools like rolling pins or plastic cookie cutters for added fun.
Why it works: This activity engages the tactile sense. It helps develop fine motor skills through hand and finger movements. It also encourages creativity and can have a calming effect as the repetitive actions help focus your little one’s attention.
2. Pouring and Scooping with Rice or Beans
How it’s done: Set up a bin filled with dried rice or beans and provide scoops, cups, and funnels. Let your child pour and transfer the materials between containers.
Why it works: This activity enhances hand-eye coordination and fine motor control. It also helps develop problem-solving skills as children figure out how to transfer the materials efficiently.
3 Obstacle Course for Balance and Movement
How it’s done: Create an obstacle course with pillows, small hurdles, or balance beams and encourage your child to walk, crawl, or jump through it.
Why it works: This engages the vestibular and proprioceptive systems, improving balance, coordination, and spatial awareness. It also develops gross motor skills and builds confidence in movement.
Activity 2: Roleplaying and Pretend Play
Picking up a doll and pretending it’s a baby or preparing an imaginary meal for a family of stuffed animals is an aspect of childhood many resonate with. What may now seem like a silly or adorable memory to look back on, is actually way more important than many of us realise!
Pretend play is an essential part of early-to-late childhood that subconsciously kickstarts our learning and overall development. While pretending, children cultivate the ability to form creative solutions for problems, explore new ideas, and try out new roles.
Besides the well known benefit of enhanced imagination, pretend play nurtures children’s self-esteem, develops their fine and gross motor skills, enhances their social prowess, and supports brain development in executive function, symbolic thought, and theory of mind. Here’s how:
Self-Esteem: Pretend play allows children to take on unfamiliar roles like a teacher, doctor, or superhero, helping them build confidence in their abilities and decision-making.
Develops Fine and Gross Motor Skills: Activities like dressing up, crafting pretend props, or acting out scenarios improve hand-eye coordination, balance, and body movements.
Enhances Social Skills: Playing with others encourages teamwork, communication, and negotiation as children create and act out stories together.
Supports Executive Function: Pretend play requires planning, organising, and problem-solving. This helps children develop skills for decision-making and self-control.
Encourages Symbolic Thought: Using objects to represent something else (e.g., a stick as a magic wand) helps children think creatively and understand abstract concepts.
Fosters Theory of Mind: By acting out different roles, children learn to understand others’ feelings, thoughts, and perspectives. This promotes empathy and emotional intelligence.
Activity 3: Construction Play
Another one of the most popular activities for playgroup children is constructive play. This experience centers around building, shaping, and manipulating objects to create something new. Coined by child development expert, Jean Piaget, construction play encourages children to materialise their innovative ideas using a number of different materials. In today’s learning environment, these materials often take the form of sand, blocks, recyclables, or even non-toxic playdough – depending on the age of your child.
Constructive play is a child-led learning technique that fosters creativity, encourages patience and persistence, nurtures spatial awareness, promotes cognitive development, improves fine and gross motor skills, builds confidence, and promotes collaboration, among several other benefits. Here’s how:
Patience and Persistence: Constructive play requires trial and error. This teaches children to be patient, persistent, and resilient when things don’t go as planned.
Spatial Awareness: Building activities help children understand shapes, sizes, and spatial relationships. This lays the foundation for early math and geometry skills.
Cognitive Development: Constructive play enhances memory, focus, and organisational skills as children plan and execute their creations.
Fine and Gross Motor Skills: Manipulating building blocks, arranging objects, or constructing structures helps develop hand-eye coordination. This activity also refines small and large muscle movements.
Confidence: Completing a project or building something successfully can boost your child’s self-esteem and give them a sense of accomplishment.
Collaboration: When done in groups, constructive play encourages teamwork, communication, and the sharing of ideas to achieve common goals.
Activity 4: Science and Discovery
An often overlooked, yet incredibly engaging aspect of playgroup learning activities is science and discovery. In practice, these projects include simple experiments like mixing colours, exploring magnets, or observing bugs in a nature jar. These experiences provide children with an exciting opportunity to discover the broader concepts of their natural world in an interactive and intentional fashion.
Through such educational activities, children benefit from enhanced observational and critical thinking skills. The simple experiments children participate in spark curiosity for the unknown and nurture their investigation skills. Here are more benefits your child can enjoy through science and discovery activities:
Attention to Detail: Science activities help children to observe closely, notice patterns, and focus on details.
Love for Learning: Fun and interactive activities make learning enjoyable, instilling a lifelong interest in science and discovery.
Language Development: Discussing their observations and describing processes improves vocabulary and communication skills.
Activity 5: Outdoor Exploration
Adequate sunlight and fresh air are not just important for your child’s physical health, but for their educational development as well. What better way to keep their mind and bodies engaged than with outdoor play?
This playgroup learning activity combines the key features of all previously mentioned experiences. After all, an outside environment provides ample space and the perfect opportunity to facilitate sensory, constructive, and pretend play. It’s also the most convenient setting to host a science and discovery session. Here are the unique benefits of outdoor exploration in early childhood:
Connects Learning to the Real World: Playgroup activities that involve outdoor exploration link classroom concepts to real-life experiences. This makes lessons more meaningful and engaging for young learners.
Environmental Awareness: Such experiences help children develop respect and appreciation for nature. This instils early lessons about sustainability and conservation.
Emotional Well-Being: Being in nature helps reduce stress, improves mood, and encourages relaxation. This creates a sense of calm and happiness in children.
Sensory Development: Nature provides a rich sensory experience. It stimulates children’s sensory systems with different textures, sounds, sights, and smells.
Balance and Coordination: Navigating uneven terrains, climbing, and balancing on logs or rocks help refine physical coordination and spatial awareness.
Find Engaging Playgroup Activities
Overall, playgroup classes in Singapore offer children the opportunity to adapt to new environments, socialise with others within the same age group, and gain a significant developmental advantage before transitioning to primary school. At the Huda Childcare Centre in Singapore, active and fun exploratory learning is at the heart of the playgroup curriculum.
Here, children are recognised as an active agent in their own learning and curiosity, creativity, and individuality are nurtured through engaging activities that promote holistic development. Contact us to find out more.
