The CIRCLE Family Activity Collection translates child development research into practice by providing a variety of hands-on activities that families can do at home. We hope you find the CIRCLE Family Activity Collection to be useful in providing fun, playful learning experiences for your children (birth up through age 5) during this unprecedented period at home. These activities can help you supplement resources shared by your child’s teacher, building on your family relationships to support learning.
Creating a new normal for children during the uncertainties of COVID-19. A child psychologist at the Children’s Learning Institute explains what parents can do to maintain a sense of normalcy for their children during this time.
We selected these activities to help your family keep children engaged in meaningful learning, while you’re home together this week. We’ll be posting a new set of activities each week that only need common household materials, so come back often. Looking for more activities for your family? Visit cliengagefamily.org!
Para ver actividades en español, favor haga clic aquí.
English Activities:
Week 10: Water and Ice
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Science
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old children
By making predictions and observations, children can learn how ice and water are related. In this activity, your child will melt ice cubes into water and will be able to explain why this happens.
LEARN MOREWeek 10: Stir, Scoop, and Bake
Learning areas: Math, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3- or 4-year-old children
You and your child will pretend to measure ingredients and bake using water and simple kitchen tools.
LEARN MOREWeek 10: Sink or Float
Learning areas: Math, Science
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Your child will use predictions and observations to determine whether objects will sink or float when placed in water. Your child will also be introduced to vocabulary, such as sink, float, predict, and experiment.
LEARN MOREWeek 9: Letter Detective
Learning areas: Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
This activity reinforces letter recognition as children use detective skills to search for letters in printed materials.
LEARN MOREWeek 9: Shape Hunt
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Math
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old children
In this game, your child will use pictures and real objects to practice identifying different shapes.
LEARN MOREWeek 9: Guessing Game
Learning areas: Language and Communication
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Children will use language and reasoning skills to develop clues to describe objects for others to guess what they are.
LEARN MOREWeek 8: Head in the Clouds
Learning areas: Science, Sensory and Art
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Children will observe clouds, and then draw or paint what they see.
LEARN MOREWeek 8: Bug Photo Hunt
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Science
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old children
In this activity, you and your child will walk around a park, your neighborhood, or your backyard, talking about and taking pictures of bugs you find.
LEARN MOREWeek 8: Nature Names
Learning areas: Reading and Writing, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old children
Children and parents will go on a nature walk to collect items such as sticks, grass, flowers, leaves, etc. to use in forming the child’s name.
LEARN MOREWeek 7: Family Fitness
Learning areas: Math, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 24-36 month, 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old children
In this activity, you and your child will do exercises by choosing number and movement cards out of a pile. If you don’t have a printer, you can draw stick figures of each exercise and write the numbers on pieces of paper.
LEARN MOREWeek 7: Sensory Popcorn
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Science
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Your child will practice using and talking about all five senses through observation of microwave popcorn. If you don’t have popcorn, you could do this activity with chips or crackers.
LEARN MOREWeek 7: Grocery Shopping List
Learning areas: Reading and Writing, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
After reading a book about preparing a meal or food, you and your child will create a grocery shopping list of ingredients to make the same or similar dish. Tip: You can find a read-aloud video online of a book about cooking.
LEARN MOREWeek 6: Find Your Partner
Learning areas: Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
This activity helps children recognize both upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet and match them together. If you don’t have index cards, search for uppercase and lowercase “partners” in books or ads!
LEARN MOREWeek 6: Number Cups
Learning areas: Math, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3- or 4-year-old children
In this game, your child will use cereal or other small items to practice counting and matching to written numbers. If you don’t have small cups, you can draw circles on a piece of paper or use a muffin tin.
LEARN MOREWeek 6: How Does Your Garden Grow?
earning areas: Language and Communication, Science
Best Fit for: Best fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
Now is a great time to grow plants! In this activity, you and your child will do a simple science experiment to see if plants grow better in the light or in the dark.
LEARN MOREWeek 5: Let's Bake!
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Math
Best Fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Have you caught the baking bug? In this activity, you and your child will bake a sweet treat together.
LEARN MOREWeek 5: I Hear Thunder
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Families with 24-36 months-old, 3, 4- or 5-year-old children
Try this activity on a rainy day. In this musical activity, your child will join in a rhyming song with action movements and will practice language related to the weather.
LEARN MOREWeek 5: Post Office
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Families with 24-36 months-old, 3, 4- or 5-year-old children
Is your child missing someone? Write them a letter! Your child will compose or dictate “mail,” talk about who will receive it, and put it in a homemade mailbox. If you can, put a real stamp on the letter and mail it out.
LEARN MOREWeek 4: Going Camping
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Families with 24-36 months-old, 3, 4- or 5-year-old children
Parks might be closing, but your living room never does! In this activity, families will read a book on camping and then pretend to go camping.
LEARN MOREWeek 4: Letter or Number?
Learning areas: Reading and Writing, Math
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
In this activity, your child will distinguish between letters and numbers, helping to reinforce recognition of both. If you don’t have magnetic letters and numbers, try using junk mail or advertisements!
LEARN MOREWeek 4: Dance Party
Learning areas: Social and Emotional, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Families with 24-36 months-old, 3, 4- or 5-year-old children
Let's your family moving! Listening to a favorite song, you and your child will take turns copying each other’s dance moves.
LEARN MOREWeek 3: Ducks in the Pond
Learning areas: Language and Communication, Math
Best Fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Go on an imaginary field trip to the pond and count the ducks! In this activity, your child will play a game of counting objects and creating sets of objects.
LEARN MOREWeek 3: I Spy Letters
Learning areas: Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
In this activity, you and your child will play "I Spy" with letters in words displayed in their surroundings. To extend this activity, have your child find something that begins with a certain letter.
LEARN MOREWeek 3: Sing About Your Felings
Learning areas: Social and Emotional, Physical Development
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
It’s normal to experience a variety of emotions each day, especially now. This activity will help children develop an awareness of feelings and expand their vocabulary with words that refer to feelings.
LEARN MOREWeek 2: Building with Boxes
Learning Areas: Language and Communication, Science
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
Reuse those delivery boxes! In this activity, you and your child will build something sturdy out of a cardboard box.
LEARN MOREWeek 2: Listening Walk
Learning Areas: Language and Communication
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
Ready to go outside? In this activity, children will strengthen their listening skills by focusing on hearing different sounds during a walk outside.
LEARN MOREWeek 2: Same Sound Object Matching
Learning Areas: Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
In this activity, children will use listening skills to determine whether two objects have the same beginning sound. Extend this activity by having your child put away items that start with the same sound!
LEARN MOREWeek 1: Create a Journal
Learning Areas: Reading and Writing
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
Help your children log what they’re doing while at home over the next few weeks. Make a simple journal for your child and encourage them to write or draw about people and experiences.
LEARN MOREWeek 1: Clean Up with Simon Says
Learning Areas: Language and Communication
Best Fit for: Families with 4- or 5-year-old children
Tidy up in a fun, productive way at the end of the day. Play a Simon Says game to help your child follow verbal instructions with two or three steps.
LEARN MOREWeek 1: Snacktime Counting
Learning Areas: Math and Science
Best Fit for: Families with 2-, 3-, or 4-year-old children
Practice math while your family eats a snack together—everyone needs to take a break. Using cereal or another snack food, your child can practice early math skills like counting and one-to-one correspondence as they improve fine motor skills.
LEARN MOREWeek 1: All By Myself
Learning Areas: Social and Emotional
Best Fit for: Families with 3-, 4- or 5-year-old children
Support your children to develop their self-concept and hopefully do some things by themselves..so that parents and older siblings can do their own work. Read a book with your child about doing things independently, and then make an “all by myself” train out of paper.
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