Today’s Family continues to support our families. Home Activities is a new blog series where we share activities and games to keep bodies and brains active while we all practice safe Social Distancing. Just as we’re sharing these thoughts with you, please share these ideas with your family and friends through social media.

Today’s Home Activity: Improve It

Ages: 5 and up

This is a game or activity you can start at a moment’s notice, since all you need to start is an object. Come up with a list of things that are wrong with the object, or things that the objects can’t do. For example, a toy car might not be able to fly through the air on its own, or a hairbrush might get caught on your hair. Try to think of three or four problems with the object.

The next step is the fun part: you go and “improve it!” by thinking of ways in which you could make the object better. For example, you could make the toy car out of paper and add wings. It doesn’t matter if the improvements can be actually made, just so long as they solve the problems you’ve come up with before!

At this point you can go in two directions: you can encourage your child to make the improved version of the object, either in real life or by making a plan of how they would make it if that were possible. Or, you can start the whole process over again, by asking about the problems with the new and improved object. For example, your paper car no longer has wheels that can turn – what are your solutions to that?

Why we love it: This activity is great at inspiring children to think about the world differently and to see opportunities to improve the objects around them.