Ever since The Boy started school, I've missed many parts of our daily routine especially the spontaneous play sessions. Once home from school, he tends to collapse on the sofa with a snack and drink, watching television for a little while, and I realised quite quickly that it would be very easy for it to suddenly be tea time and not have had any time together doing anything.
As a result I have started setting up a play invitation for him to explore, nothing challenging or requiring any detailed levels of concentration, more activities that allow sensory exploration. I think he finds them quite therapeutic, exploring different textures, drawing patterns and allowing his mind to wander as he plays.
5 Easy After School Play Activities
- Tiddlywinks: I used transparent counters, painted some wooden numbers and place them in different sections. Each tiddlywink that lands in that section scores that point. The Boy loved working out his score after we'd played, and yes he beat me.
- Decorate The Line: I drew a wavy line on a piece of A4 paper and provided a choice of different coloured sands, beads and sequins to decorate the line as he saw fit.
- Pom-Pom Pick-Up: Pom-poms of different sizes amd colours, and large tweezers. This gives the potential for the child to sort them (if they want to) into colours or sizes.
- Coffee and Cinnamon Sensory Play: Based on this sensory play activity, I let The Boy explore the different scents from the coffee, cinnamon and dried oranges.
- Curious Conkers: It's Autumn and that means conker season. Would work well at any time of the year with flowers, seeds etc.
All of these items are resources that we had lying around the house (or garden). The partitioned plate is one of three that I bought for The Boy's birthday party food last year from Asda. The large tweezers are from Amazon and the coloured counters for tiddlywinks from eBay.
