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Fun activities with children
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Written by Wei-Jing Zhu
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Jotting down a number of creative activities that I enjoyed with my children.1. Maze creation
My 5 yr old son likes to do maze. I suggested that we create maze instead, and solve it ourselves. The simple rectangular version: first we have a rectangular array of dots (say 12 x 10 vertices), then the rule is, to enclose the outer rectangle first except for the entrance and exit, and then, for every internal node, we should have 2 edges (out of the possible 4), and the edge nodes may have up to 3 edges.
The next step, we have circular maze, starting with nodes that are on concentric circles, and move outward. The starting point is the center of the circle.
2. Physics fun
- centrifugal force: swing a bucket full of water, and kids are amazed that it doesn't spill when up-side-down
- paper on top of a text book to demo gravity
- drop 2 bouncy balls: the top one will bounce doubly hign
- How do things work: the book and the game
- vacuum: birthday candle inside a glass jar (upside down), on a dish with 3 inches of water
- vacuum: an empty milk bottle, pour hot water on it. It will shrivel
- magnifying glass to light paper using heat from sun
3. Learn to swim
- Floating: hold them in floating position, and ask them to look into your eyes. They are in proper position, then you release slowly, and they are still floating.
4. Learn to bike
Create a series of intermediate steps between biking with training wheel, to fully biking
- training wheel biking, minimizing the sound of training wheel touching the ground
- on a real bike without training wheel, hold the seat, and have them bike
- hold bike still, ask them to sit and balance while you sway the bike.
- Same as last step, but have them balance standing up on the pedals.
- Have them cruise and balance: slide down a gentle slope, don't pedal, just try balance
- Hold their seat, and have them pedal while you run after them, to give them a sense of what real biking is like
- Hold the center of the front handle bar while they bike
- Hold and let go of the front handle bar periodically while they bike
- Hold their body while they bike
- just padding them on the shoulder while they bike ( they are now really biking, but need the sense that you are always there)
- Running after them, with out-stretched arms to show you can hold them if needed. But they are biking on their own.
- Success.
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