18 Daycare Activities to Help Young Children Ease Back into the Classroom

Whether your students are heading back to child care after lockdown or arriving for their first ever day at preschool, entering a busy classroom post-Covid will be a challenge for children and parents—and it’s your job to ease them into it while supporting key childhood development milestones.

From sensory development to advancement in language and literacy, early influences play a huge part in childhood development. But since Covid hit, children have missed out on a lot of the support they’d normally receive—leaving parents feeling increasingly anxious about the potential impact on their children.

This leaves many parents in a pickle. On the one hand, they’re keen to get children back into child care. On the other, they’re still worried about potential safety risks and the difficulties of saying goodbye after so many months together.

So, what can ECE leaders do to balance this Catch-22 and alleviate parent worries?

The answer is to do what you do best: Support and nurture children through tailored activities.

When it comes to creating your next lesson plan, it’s important to focus on activities that will help relieve anxieties, keep distance where possible, and make sure parents can stay connected throughout the day.

Ready to help ease young children (and parents) back into the classroom?

Let’s do this!

Table of Contents

• The top 9 activities for infants in daycare aged 0-1 year-olds

• Sensory activities for infants in daycare
• Social activities for infants
• Cognitive activities for infants

• The top 9 activities for toddlers

• Activities for 2-year-olds
• Activities for 3-year-olds
• Activities for 4-year-olds

• Create a welcoming and safe space to reassure families

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The top 9 activities for infants in daycare aged 0-1 year-olds

For the first year of a child’s life, their brains are like a sponge soaking up knowledge—and it’s your job to support them through each developmental stage.

Here’s how to nurture infants and show parents safety is your #1 priority.

Sensory activities for infants in daycare

• Blow bubbles: This activity is a great way to engage young infants without getting too close (great to share with parents who are anxious about too much physical contact). Simply lie the infant on a soft floor covering and blow bubbles over them. They’ll be mesmerized by the shapes, movement, and feeling as the bubbles pop!
  

• Experience the great outdoors: In the post-lockdown world, we all appreciate the great outdoors more than ever. This activity is perfect to alleviate safety concerns and give infants (and teachers) the fresh air they need. Lay infants on a rug under a tree so they can watch, listen, and feel the wind and sun on their skin. Note: Make sure infants are protected from the sun and that it’s not too bright for their delicate eyes.
  

• Make baby rain sticks: The post-lockdown world has gone wild for autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos. The sound of whispering, rustling, or other seemingly mundane background noises trigger a physical sensitivity in many people—and it can even benefit babies’ development. This activity is designed to offer the sensory experience ASMR produces. 
  

        Here’s how it works:

• Use this guide from The Imagination Tree to make your own mini rain sticks for babies to use.
  

• Make sure each baby has their own rain stick (to reduce germ spreading) and write their name on each one so they don’t get mixed up.
  

• Sit back and watch as they lap up the sound and texture of rain!
  

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Language and literacy activities for infants

• Photo albums: Help ease infants’ transition into child care by helping them maintain their connection to family.
  

       Here’s how:

• Glue photos of the infant and their family onto sturdy cards.
  

• Punch a hole in the corner of each card and tie them together with a piece of string. 
  

• Share the book with the infant—they’ll love seeing pictures of the people they love and hearing you talk about them.
  

• Rhyme time: Infants love the rhythmic tone of nursery rhymes. Not only do they boost language and literacy skills, but they also help to soothe and focus babies on your voice. As infants start to make sounds, try repeating rhyming sounds back at them. For example, if they say, “Ma ma ma,” respond with, “Da da da”.
  

• Sing ‘finger play’ songs: A great way to boost language and coordination skills is to sing songs that have hand movements to go with them. Pat-a-cake, The Wheels on the Bus, and Head-Shoulders-Knees-and-Toes are all baby favorites.

Social activities for infants

• Peek-a-boo: This one’s an oldie but a goodie. Peek-a-boo is a fun way to get infants engaging one-on-one with their carer and noticing different expressions—and it can be done from a distance too if necessary to alleviate parent concerns about too much physical interaction.
  

• Copycat: Playing copycat games with infants can help strengthen emotional bonds, encourage understanding of different facial expressions, and help with movement coordination. You can either copy the infant, or make your own movements (very slowly) and watch to see if they copy you. Note that very young infants are only likely to make small movements at first.
  

• Name the photo: Once you’ve made your photo book (see the language and literacy activities above), use it to help boost social development. Seeing different faces and expressions, and hearing you talk about the emotions each person is showing, where they are, and what they’re doing in the picture, will broaden the child’s social understanding.

The top 9 activities for toddlers

By the time children reach two-years-old, their development is skyrocketing. Every year from this point they will reach new heights of developmental progress, which the right activities can help to boost. 

Here are some of the best activities to help children hit those developmental milestones, while easing them into child care and alleviating parent anxiety through social distancing and safety precautions.  

For a full list of early childhood milestones, check out the CDC website.

Activities for 2-year-olds

• Rainbow bingo: Play rainbow bingo to get children recognizing different colors and making links between objects and colors. 
  

       Here’s how it works:

1. Make a sheet with nine different colored boxes on it, and print one sheet per child.
2. Ask the children questions like, ‘What color is the sky?’ and ‘What color is a banana?’
3. Every time you ask a question, get the children to check the box with the color related to the question.
4. The first child to check all the boxes can shout BINGO!
   

• Make friends with other children: At two-years-old, children are becoming increasingly interested in their peers. Play a getting-to-know-you game by getting children to sit in a circle and ask them to put up their hands when you ask questions. For example, ‘Who is two years old?’, or ‘Who’s mummy is called Julie?’, etc. This can also give children a space to talk about their families and help ease them back into school-life slowly.
  

• Play Simon Says: Two-year-olds are starting to become more active and able to copy words or sentences. Simon Says is a great way to help develop these skills by getting children to copy your actions and words. If you start your sentence with ‘Simon Says’, the children should copy you. But if you just jump into the sentence (for example, ‘Touch your toes!’) without mentioning Simon, the children should resist copying you.

Activities for 3-year-olds

• Emotions chart: By age three, toddlers are starting to show and verbalize a wider range of emotions. This is the perfect time to implement an emotions chart—and it can even help stabilize their mental health as they grow up. There are a ton of different types of emotions charts to choose from, but a great place to start is this Map My Feelings chart from He’s Extraordinary.
  

• Make believe: At around three-years-old, children will start engaging in make believe regularly. It’s great for creativity, problem-solving, and socializing. Help children develop these skills by offering a dress-up box and various props—but remember to clean them after use to avoid spreading germs.
  

• Colour and shape jump: This game is a simple and safe activity to get young children moving, following instructions, and learning different shapes and colors. Here’s how it works:
  

1. Cut out around 20-30 different (large!) shapes in a range of colors.
2. Spread them out around the classroom floor or playground.
3. Shout out different colors or shapes and get children to jump or run to a matching one—but remember to instruct them only to go to a shape if there are no other children already on it.

 Activities for 4-year-olds

• Celebrate diversity with a family tree and heritage map: At four-years-old, children start to enjoy talking about their own interests—this social skill boosts confidence and helps them connect with one another. Ask children to draw a family tree, starting with themselves and their siblings, and working their way backwards to their grandparents. Once they’ve created their family tree you can ask them questions about each person, like ‘What are their favorite foods?’, ‘What do they like to do?’ or, ‘How old are they?’
  

• Sing counting songs: Getting four-year-olds to sing counting songs is a great way to help them understand the concept of time and counting. Ten in the Bed and Five Little Speckled Frogs are always a hit. Discover more great learning songs here. 
  

• Group story time: This activity is all about helping children learn basic grammar. Begin a story with one sentence. Then go around the classroom and get each child to add one sentence of their own to continue the story. It has to be a whole sentence—and for extra points, they can say whether they used any commas too.

Create a welcoming and safe space to reassure families

After a difficult year, families are hesitant about sending their children back into busy classrooms. But with the right approach and well-thought-through activities, you can reassure parents that they’ve made the right decision. 
From activities that focus on developmental milestones, to socially distanced (but still social) games and songs, there are a ton of ways to help rebuild that trust and get parents feeling 100% secure in their decision to send their children back to preschool. 

Remember to keep parents engaged throughout the day, especially during those first few weeks, by sharing photos, videos, and messages that show their child settling in and having fun. 

Trust us, it won’t take long for your hard work to pay off!

Looking for an easy way to connect with parents throughout the day? Check out MomentPath for a live demo today!