Learn, Play and Bond with Your Kids this School Holiday

A friendly cooking competition can be both exhilarating and yummy!

Looking for ideas to keep the kids busy during the school holidays? We’ve got some healthy, educational and simple ideas that you and your kids will love!

Kids MasterChef: Learn healthy cooking

Make mealtimes fun!

A delicious way to develop your kid’s focus and fine motor skills, a MasterChef session will get them mixing, whisking, measuring, and decorating. Try this nutritious recipe for pancakes for an easy way to start the ball rolling.

Sugar-free banana pancakes

Ingredients: Three medium ripe bananas, three eggs, two teaspoons of baking powder, a teaspoon of cinnamon or vanilla essence, and four to six tablespoons of coconut or almond flour.

Optional fun toppings: Fruits and berries, yogurt, crushed nuts, seeds, maple syrup, and mint.

Directions: 

1. Mix baking powder with cinnamon or vanilla essence.

2. Add mashed bananas and whisked eggs. Mix thoroughly.

3. Add in flour a little at a time and mix until batter has pancake-like consistency.

4. Heat pan and drizzle in any of these healthy oils - Canola, Olive or Coconut Oil.

5. Spoon three tablespoons of the mix onto the pan and cook for three to four minutes or until the surface fills with bubbles. Flip the pancake and cook for another two to three minutes.

6. Decorate with your favourite toppings and enjoy!

Pick up ingredients from Cold Storage located at Causeway Point (#B1-31/32/33), Northpoint City North Wing (#B1-06/07) and The Centrepoint (#B1-09/10); Fairprice Finest located at Changi City Point (#B1-08/09/10/11) and Waterway Point West Wing (#B2-32); or NTUC FairPrice located at Eastpoint Mall (#05-01), Northpoint City South Wing (#B2-103/104/105/106/107) and YewTee Point (#B1-01/07).

Kids’ Yoga: Build healthy habits

Slow it down with relaxing yoga poses.

Start a healthy yoga routine with your kids this holiday! Yoga helps with body awareness, strength, flexibility, balance and coordination. In addition, with both the young and old spending time hunched over smartphones and laptops, practicing yoga can be very effective for maintaining good posture.

Choose a yoga pose for the day!

Try animal-themed yoga with poses such as: Cat, Camel, Cobra and Cow. Or, ask your kid to turn their body into shapes with yoga poses like Downward Dog (triangle), Warrior 3 Pose (rectangle) or Child’s Post (circle). Get creative! This extra step engages their imagination and helps keep their attention.

Grab yoga mats, blocks and more from Decathlon located at Waterway Point (#01-11). Or, pick up your online orders from Decathlon Orchard Connect located at The Centrepoint (#01-19/20).

Growing Beans: Cultivate observation skills

Not all kids may like to eat beans, but they will surely want to grow them!

Learning how to grow beans means you'll never be without a great source of protein in your family’s diet. It will also inspire your kids to learn about plant germination. Science experiments like this one cultivate their intellectual curiosity about the world around them, while enhancing observation and problem-solving skills.

Materials: Dried beans (white, green, black or kidney beans), clear cup(s), cotton balls, water.

Directions: 

1. Choose the beans you want to experiment with and set aside one cup for each type of bean.

2. Fill each cup with cotton balls and moisten them with water just so they are a bit damp.

3. Place four beans per cup, spaced about 1 inch apart on top of the moist cotton balls.

4. Place cups near the window as beans grow with sunlight and at room temperature.

5. Now, have your kids write down their observations and draw the bean growth process in their notebooks for the next seven to 14 days. Seed coats should expand, and roots should grow in two to three days. Stems and leaves will start to grow after.

6. And don’t forget to water them daily!

Pro-tip: You can soak the beans in tap water overnight, before you place them in the cups, to speed up the growing process!

These materials may already be available from your kitchen or pantry; if not, add them to your next grocery list! 

Edible Kitchen Scrap Gardening: Learn the joys of zero-waste cooking

Get their hands dirty for a good cause!

Don’t just throw away your kitchen scraps! With a little effort and a pinch of creativity, you can teach your kid how to devise some very imaginative indoor gardens from your kitchen leftovers with kitchen scrap gardening. This involves growing plants from some items you’d normally throw in your compost bucket. Kids love this idea, and it's a great way to reinforce the sustainable living concepts of recycling and reusing. Plus, it's a kick to grow new plants from old plant parts!

Fancy growing your own spring onions? It takes just about three to four days tops to see results! Peeled and cut onions (the bottom part), garlic cloves and even carrot tops can grow sprouts when placed atop gardening soil indoors. The sprouts can be used for stir-fries or as garnish. If you love bok choy, lettuce or celery – good news – you can re-grow them too! Just cut away the bottom part of these vegetables, place them in water or soil, and see new leaves sprouting after a few days.

All each of these plants need, is two to three inches of soil, daily watering and some exposure to light. However, keep in mind that not all kitchen scraps can be re-grown, so do some quick research online first before you try this at home!

Materials: Food scraps, old cups and containers, potting soil, water.

Get a small bag of potting soil from A Tilly A Day located at Waterway Point West Wing (#02-03)

Aquatic Life: Learn about ecosystems

Fishies are our friends!

Setting up a fish tank with your kid and teaching them how to take care of this fascinating underwater world can be very empowering. It also inspires hands-on learning and boosts their imagination, social and emotional intelligence.

Here are some tips for creating a successful fish tank:

1. Purchase an all-inclusive starter kit that comes with filter, de-chlorinator, heater, fish food, thermometer and fish net.

2. Start with a five to 20-gallon tank. Larger tanks give you more room for error in regard to water chemistry and maintenance.

3. Place the tank away from windows, sunlight or doors to maintain stable water quality and temperature.

4. Choose from hardy, low maintenance fish such as mollies, swordtails, or goldfish.

5. Ask the shopkeeper for instructions on how to maintain the tank, water and fish.

6. Get your kids to note these down so they know how to take care of their aquarium.

Now, inspire curiosity in your kids with activities such as learning about the fish species and researching fish ecosystems. Encourage them to take responsibility for their pets with daily fish feeding, tank cleaning and measuring the temperature and pH of the water.

Get your fish and fish tank starter kit at AMB Aquatic Hub located at The Centrepoint (#B2-02).

Play to work: Make a game of household chores

Work and play go hand in hand.

Need some nifty tricks to get your kids helping with chores? Turn it into a fun obstacle course! The goal is to complete challenges that alternate between boring chores and fun activities and find a hidden treasure at the end.

Directions:

1. Plan 12 different challenges such as ‘10 hula hoop skips’, ‘five jumping jacks’, ‘strike a pose’, ‘act like a monster’, ‘walk like a bear’, ‘make snow angels’, ‘spin around six times’, ‘do a cartwheel’.

2. Map out the pirate’s course around the house using any kind of string and mark out 12 stations along the course with instructions for each of the actions you’ve planned in step one.

3. Between some stations, add hurdles like ‘crawl underneath a blanket (draped over two chairs)’, ‘throw balls of socks into laundry baskets’ or ‘balance’ a book on the head while walking’.

4. Between other stations, add simple chores like 'sweep the floor', ‘wash dishes in the sink in five minutes’ or ‘’dust the bookshelf’.

5. At the last station, hide a little treasure for them to find such as their favourite treat or a surprise toy. 

Find supplies that you don’t have at home yet, like hula hoops or strings, from Daiso located at Changi City Point (#B1-01/02/03), Eastpoint Mall (#B1-14) and Waterway Point West Wing (#B1-09).

Nourishing your kid’s physical, mental and emotional intelligence can be exciting for the whole family! With just a little bit of creativity and effort, you can create thrilling adventures, magical moments and memorable bonds that will last a lifetime. Because a family that plays together, stays together!

Back