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

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

counting the dots on lego bricks whilst building.

My little one is still only 17 months so our learning is mainly made more exciting with lots of mommy songs and actions, lots of songs and repitition, lots of songs basically!!

We try to sing-song as much as possible as it's something DS responds to really well. If we turn something into a rhyme or put it to a little tune he's seems to listen more carefully and respond really well probably because it's great fun

Singing, telling stories and generally having lots of fun!

pokemon Go has been great for DC1's maths skills - eg we have 57 Squirtle candies and need 100 to evolve the Wartotle - how many do we need? If we get 3 candies for each one we catch plus another 1 for transfering to "the Professor", how many do we need to catch to get to our target? If I put it as my buddy, I can earn 1 candy for every 3km I walk, how far to I need to walk?

Going round the supermarket and getting DC1 to work out the benefit from the "2 for £2" type deals (compared to buying them individually).

With DC2, she's only little, but just talking through everything we are doing, reading lots of books to her is helping. Baking is also good for looking at numbers.

DD was smelling some flowers, so I took the opportunity to talk about our senses:
'What do you do with your eyes?' 'Look.'
'What do you do with your ears?' 'Listen.'
'What do you do with your nose?' 'Pick it!'

We count everything, every where we go. Stairs, doors, windows, chimneys, you name it!

Using picture cards helped my children learn

Playing shops with money.
Playing with water in the bath with different sized measuring cups.
Keeping a pet.

we try to learn through play and always try to have lots of fun whilst doing it

making learning fun is the way to go then children always want some fun so make games and lots learning items lots smiles all round

We do simple maths walking to school by looking at the house numbers. So when DD was little I'd ask her what the number was, was it odd or even, what the number before or after is etc.

This week 7yo DD had an orange and asked for it to be cut into quarters, we ended up doing subtracting of fractions while she ate it

my children are naturally inquisitive but i find nature trails inc fun and learning

Baking is a great way to learn about weights and measures, including time. Letting children handle money is also great, so they can learn to add and subtract when making their own purchases.

Using toys to help them understand about things

Making it fun really is the key, we're bringing up DD with two languages (as DH is German) so we often play games including eye spy with german words and translating words back and forth from english to german. She really enjoys it and it definitely helps her learning

My little girl is only 14 months so learning is all about play and fun at the moment. I make sure when she is trying new skills or doing something new I give lots of praise and encouragement.

My DD is 4 and a half and we don't do anything in particular - it's clear she is doing lots of learning all by herself, just by playing. When she is very interested in something we will support her so recently she has been asking what things add up to so we do a lot of counting with her, but only when she wants to.

One of the best things about being the mum of a toddler is that they see you as The Best Play Mate Ever! I don't need much encouragement to get down on the floor and get involved in the game she is playing (especially if there is housework to be done!) If I am playing with her then I know she is happy and learning new things. Mega blocks is one of our favourite things to do together because it is such a versatile toy and we do different things with it everyday. This morning we built a very high diving board and her plastic animals all jumped off, performing some spectacular moves. This game helped her language skills (we talked about what we were doing as we played), she used her imagination to come up with the diving board (it was a zoo yesterday and a tower the day before), planning and fine motor skills to build the diving board, we talked about the colours of the blocks and counted them as we built. Mega Blocks are the perfect toy to play with together, helping my daughter learn and bringing us closer together.

Lots of play and talk. Helping with baking and cooking increased understanding of weighing, counting, following instructions and seeing raw ingredients turning into food. My son was a very reluctant reader, so we took it in turns reading sentences/pages. Lots of memory games which appeared to be just games but were improving recall, observation and many other skills.

When our DC was little he loved playing with foam letters in the bath, we also played snap card games and used phonics flash cards. Counting with M&Ms was popular but also writing and drawing with a stick in the sand on the beach! Now that he's older and gets pocket money he can work out if he has enough to buy a toy and how much change he'll get, or how much he could save. Writing his Christmas list is always a great way to get him to write!

Some of the most fun activities that we have done at home (that aren't toy based) I found on pinterest.

My kids loved rainbow rice, where you dye the dried rice with food colouring, and they played with it outside for hours. It was a great sensory tool that encouraged them to feel with their hands, and to watch the patterns that could be made in the rice when you drive a car through. It also helps teach colours in a fun way!

My younger son also loved making a Pom Pom tunnel system on our wall by taping toilet tubes on the wall in a tunnel formation, and then placing a bowl at the end to catch the pompoms you put down the tubes! I know theres a water version of this that can be done outside too. He loved the science aspect of this, and you can also teach them their colours and get their fine motor skills to good use too.

Another pom pom game we played recently was really easy but fun too! I got a bowl of pompoms (30 or so, all sizes and colours) and some jars. I labeled the jars with some numbers between 1-10 on them, and he had to use plastic tweezer to pick up the correct number of pom poms for each jar. Fine motor skills and numbers!

Isn't learning fun :)

They learn so much with play its hard to pick one, but I taught mine colours by using coloured plastic cups in the bath. Red cup washes feet, yellow washes hair etc. Tv childrens programmes were a great help too as they would sing along to the songs.

Flash cards were brilliant for helping my son to learn the letter sounds and also to learn to read high frequency words. We sounded out the letters (two sets) then played letter snap (where you had to say the letter as well as "snap" to win the pair!). We also played memory pairs- all cards face down and then had to find paid and again, say the letter to win the pair. We used a few each night and then I added extra letters as I wanted my son to learn them.