30 Brilliant Activities For Your Child to Try Before They Start School
Published: 28/04/2022
At Busy Bees, we understand how important it is for children to experience new things in their early years to help their development and we encourage all our children to try as many new things as possible.
We recently conducted research into how parents feel the pandemic has impacted their children’s development. Deena Billings, Head of Experience at Busy Bees, shares her thoughts on the findings:
Life is full of wonderful adventures and every child should experience as much as they possibly can during their early years to help them develop their confidence and understanding of the world. Sadly, many have missed out on important milestones due to the pandemic.
Our research found that 72 per cent of parents with pre-school aged children believe experiencing new things is important for their child’s development. However, nearly two-thirds of parents (63%) believe their children have missed out on many of these key experiences due to the pandemic, with 78 per cent agreeing that their child’s progression has been held back.
As part of the research, we also polled almost 2,000 members of the Busy Bees Parent Panel (thanks to all of you who took part!). More than a third (36 per cent) are concerned that the pandemic has made it harder for their child to feel ready for school.
These findings confirm what we have seen in our nurseries and heard from parents firsthand. But the great news is that more than half of our parents (52%) are already making plans to make up all the things their children have missed now that life is returning to normality.
And we’re doing our bit to help too in all our centres. Since the beginning of April, we’ve been rolling out the ‘Best Start with Buzz’ programme which means we’re building in extra activities at our centres that will specifically support the key areas of development which we know have been most affected by the pandemic:
We’ve also worked with parents to develop a list of the definitive 30 things that all children must experience before they start school. You can download the list here - we hope this provides some inspiration for family-friendly activities to take away over the coming summer months.
Top 30 Things Every Child Should Do Before They Start School
If you’re curious about how many of these your child has already experienced, take our quiz here and be sure to share your results with us on social media.