free stuff.
We love something for nothing! But not free rubbish, we are talking about valuable free stuff. Free stuff that mirrors our values, what we believe in, other businesses doing great things to make our lives better. So when we come across this valuable, free stuff… we like to share it.
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So here we go, and big thanks to these inspirational people, we love what you’re doing!
Paper jet
Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vikyQh7eGYc9uz31t0CLH1XA5f3PWb4Z
This is a PDF document which you download and print.
Printable board games
Download link: https://www.printableboardgames.net/preview/Snakes_and_Ladders
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Children's colouring pages
Download link: http://library.nyam.org/colorourcollections/
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OSG Hacks
Hack 1 – Surprise me!
How to get kids to play alone without asking you to do EVERYthing with them? Ask if they can surprise you. Then you are still part of it (as they are doing it for you) but you can rest while they do what they’re doing!
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Hack 2 – Challenge Setting
Kids tend to start getting bored when they have mastered a game or played it too often. This means you have the constant need to introduce new things. No. Rather introduce a challenge element to the game like time. Time how long it takes to complete, then they are up against themselves to beat their best time. This teaches them the patience required to improve and be better.
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Hack 3 – Teach
A valuable skill to learn is the ability to teach others, whatever the skill one has acquired. And yes, children can teach adults too, and they have a lot of fun doing it. They can also teach siblings, younger or older. Encourage them to teach one another, especially when they have mastered something, there are more hours to be shared teaching others. At the same time they learn how to give time to others, something many adults have yet to learn!
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Hack 4 – Get Up!
Children do need to use their energy and once they do, they have greater capacity to concentrate and focus and do something constructive. A good way is to introduce a little fitness into their day. YouTube is a good place to start, easy to find kids fitness videos that are short, fun and effective.
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Hack 5 – Everyday Things
Our daily lives are full of things that are just part of life, like doing the washing, cooking dinner , washing the car and spring cleaning cupboards. As adults these are chores… but children don’t always view the world through our same lens. Involve them in these life tasks, they often find them fun and at the same time they start to understand all you do for them that they may not notice… and you now have some help!
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Hack 6 – TV for Learning
We all know TV is not the ideal way for our children to use their minds and imagination but reality is sometimes we need to buy some quiet time from the TV. Use this time to learn about the world, there are plenty of programmes on animals, cooking, places around the world, how things are made… these are the sorts of things that become real edutainment. Our children are always full of questions we don’t always know the answer to, “What is yodelling”, “How do you make chocolate”, “Is a cheetah faster than a car?” – use this as your source for YouTube searching, there is so much to learn while in front of a TV!
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We’d love to learn about your hacks.
Please share with our community!
Send us an email and we will add it to the website.
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