Children love to build. It's something to do with the challenge, the skill and probably the knocking down, that makes it such an appealing activity for kids. It's not hard to find things around your house (other than blocks etc) that your children could build with, and today we raided the plastics cupboard to give it a go. You will need some plastic plates, cups and bowls (or whatever you have on hand really) I got these from KMart ages ago and at the time they were $3 each set. I think they may be $2 now! All I did was put them on the floor. Job done, haha. Now leave it up to your child to figure out what to do. It wasn't long before she was building! That naughty gravity! The challenge, use ALL of them in one tower What goes up... Handy Tips: - Simplify this activity by just focussing on balancing as many as your child is capable of. Provide a stable surface to begin on. - Extend this activity by challenging your child to use every plastic item they have in the one tower. See if they can build 2 towers that they can join together somehow. Include a focus on colours and patterns as well. - Mix it up by providing other plastic items like various shaped and sized containers, funnels, bottles etc to provide different challenges. - Make your child aware of the problem solving they are doing. "How are you going to get the bowl to balance on the cup?" "I love how you turned the cup upside down to balance it on top of another cup" etc - Instead of always giving your child directions as to how they are expected to play, I like to mix it up and create "invitations" to play where children can explore and figure out for themselves what they can do. This type of open-ended activity allows the child to take the activity to a level they are comfortable with while giving them the freedom to explore different angles. Your child may come up with other fabulous games/activities with some plastic pieces. - Use new language and descriptive words when talking to your child about what they are doing, like, "balancing" and "gravity" This will help with their language development and conceptual understanding. Happy playing, Debs :) New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner Are you on Facebook? We are and we'd love to see you there. Hey, we're also on Twitter now too. :)