Tell Mega Bloks the ways you make learning fun for your children - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

There’s no doubt that your children think playing is great fun, but they might not always feel quite the same about learning. Mega Bloks would like to hear about the games you play with your children that might sneakily teach them things they’ll need to know in the future, or the techniques you’ve developed to make learning fun for your children.

Here’s what Mega Bloks have to say: “Every parent wants what’s best for their children. They want to build them up, and so do we at Mega Bloks. The block scooping wagon helps your DC reach important physical milestones, such as developing balance, co-ordination and motor skills. In stacking tall towers, children learn to develop their creativity. In telling stories with characters, they’re exploring their imaginations. And in building make-believe worlds where they can be the hero, they’re also building up the confidence to be anything!”

See the Mega Bloks block scooping wagon in action below:

So, whether you pretend to be at the supermarket and teach them how to count change or get them to learn about road signs while playing with cars, share your ways of getting your child to enjoy learning, or to make playing educational for their future.

All those who post a comment below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Toys R Us voucher.

Thanks, and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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I have 5 kids so learning has to be fun for them all, we learn how to dress ourselves by all standing in a line and the first puts on the 2nds childs top for them and buttons it and then puts their pants on for them and the rest of their clothes, then the 2nd does the same for the 3rd and so on, its a race against time and can get really funny if the helper is rushing and the child getting dressed by them cant stand still. It makes learning how to do buttons, laces, tucking tops in, shoes on the right feet extra fun and it saves mummy having to do it all by herself !!

Learn through song. My girls love the educational videos on YouTube!

I make sure to introduce letters and numbers to every little thing in life. If we're baking brownies together, we count eggs and spoons. While we're waiting for them to bake, we look at the clock and I encourage them to figure out the time and how it works. And i-spy is our favourite car game- little do DC know it's my little trick for helping them get their head around letters and spelling!

Whenever we go for a walk we look for "clues" which are pretty much anything on the floor that shouldn't be there e.g. Hair clips, leaves, ladybirds, sweets, anything! Then we use the clues to make up a story about how it got there. Depending on the item, my 4 yr old might pick it up to make a collection to show her dad / grandparents and tell them the tale when she gets home.

I use outdoor /indoor learning educational &fun with my dd aged 34 months indoor she enjoys everything from helping me in the kitchen she knows the spices,utensils the colours of each spice i use we count as we go along,doing the laundry the numbers/Alphabet (I have a digital timer with the minutes/hour displayed).
Story time/Playing toys /lego blocks making colourful displays/counting blocks/pointing out colours with toy kitchenware is role playing essential for everyday life .Teaching starts from home,children learn adapt from around home environment/pre school playgroup
Outdoor we look at signs/pictures/vehicles/noise we count steps when we are strolling along she can read door numbers/reads out alphabet letters on streetsigns.when she sees animals like a dog/cat she likes to act with noises they make .

I set up a "Homework Cafe" at the kitchen table. I serve hot chocolate and brioche and we all sit together with our drinks and snacks to tackle our homework. The kids really like it, we chat and don't take it too seriously. The love the roleplay that I'm a waitress and we're in a cafe

I find my daughter learns best when she's relaxed and playing. We do role play together like shops and count money out or when we're baking for example I'll get her to count out the spoonfuls of flour as she goes.

We count while junping on the trampoline for the youngest and for the oldest we use the letters from scrabble to help with spelling. So we time how long it takes her to find the letters for the correct word.
All correct and there is a prize some wrong still get a prize. We dont put pressure on them we just try and have as much fun as possible.

We do a treasure hunt - who can find something with whatever letter/sound in it first. I do let DD win most of the time!

Also get DD to help with the cooking e.g. Check the display on the scales to practice her numbers. She likes it best when the outcome is cake, as do I.

Lots of singing songs!

We love role play. My 2 year daughter loves dressing up and getting into character. This morning she was a dinosaur and was roaring at us.

Learning is just incorporated into everyday life and activities: counting raisins onto breakfast, asking what colour socks Mummy should wear, shouting out letters on car numberplates, talking about different foods in the supermarket and how to cook them/what they taste like, getting 10p pocket money for little tasks then counting the coins to work out if there is enough for a magazine.

when we were learning about numbers I made my youngest, who was reluctant to learn, a folder - we created a new page for each number and she had to run around the house finding that number of things for our page ie 3 crayons, 3 books, we then drew them and she wrote the number next to them - she didn't even realise she was practicing her numbers and it really helped!

Our trick is to get DD to learn without realising it, so counting out sweets, counting out how long it takes to run to the next lamppost. Playing shops to learn about money and maths. Playing schools to teach the time and practise writing when she's taking the register and lunch orders.

Games like Orchard Toys spotty dogs are great for teaching little ones to count. Writing in the sand on a beach encouraged dd2 to learn how to write her name. All play can be educational - recognising colours, counting, writing, good manners etc come up all the time.

We're tackling colours at the moment, so lots of stacking and sorting. The stacking cups and building blocks have come in very handy for matching colours and trying to group them. LO loves playing and building, so she's happily learning through play

I spy in the car has really helped my daughter as she is learning her sounds.

we found visuals helped- ... whiteboards, markers. playdough. salt dough. water play.

I try to let my daughter's interests lead our learning at home, and I ask her to tell me about what she's doing. It's really fun when she's doing art or roll playing with toys.

Singing, singing, singing! Unfortunately for DS I am pretty much tone deaf, but does that stop me? Heck no! I can remember learning most of my French GCSE from a Kylie Minogue song, so now my toddler gets a daily dose of jolly tunes.
Cooking is also fab for counting and following instructions.

Counting and colours are some of the first ones, playing with toys and handing over a RED brick, asking them for the BLUE brick while pointing at it etc and putting things in and out of a container 1...2...3... At first it means nothing, then they start repeating it and the brain starts soaking it in and making sense of it

Nursery rhymes are good too, like old McDonald teaching animal noises, happy and you know it teaching children to follow instructions, 5 little ducks teaching counting

Keep any obviously 'educational' activities quite short with young children and as multisensory as possible. My DS1 is currently learning to write his name and particularly likes to use black/white boards, write on mirrors/windows and use things like paints, highlighters and so on. He's also recently had a go at using the touch messages on my phone to write the letters of his name, which he enjoyed.

I used to do lots of games in particular for maths and shout out words for spellings during play time.. I got lots of games ideas and tips during some parenting courses I attended at my children's school.