April 21, 2019
Pillowcase treasure hunt!
Yes, the humble pillowcase is an absolutely brilliant resource! It only takes a little imagination to turn an ordinary pillowcase into a treasure sack!
Main areas being targeted
- Following instructions
- Vocabulary
- Concepts
- Wh+ questions
- Grammar
- Critical thinking
- Turn-taking
- Phonological Awareness
Activity
- Ask your child to walk around a safe room in the house and pick up 10 treasure items.
Tell them it’s always great to pick up some objects that might be different from what they’d normally play with. After all, learning is fun and treasure can come in all shapes and sizes.
Children find it particularly fun when their parents join in the activities as well, so please grab a pillowcase and join in the fun!
- Sit down and ask your child to pick out their favourite item from the treasure sack. Take turns.
- Be inquisitive and ask questions. Allow your child to ask you questions and assist them if they are finding a question tricky to answer – it’s a wonderful teachable moment!
Some great questions to ask:
- Where did you find it?
Provides your child the opportunity to describe the location and the position of where they found the object. - What is it?
Provides your child with the opportunity to name the object. This is a great question for vocabulary building! - What colour and shape is it?
Provides your child with the opportunity to look at an object and consider how to describe it. - Why did you think that this is a treasure?
Encourages your child to share their opinions and also assists in helping them to develop confidence in expressing their views. - How do we use it?
Encourages your child to think about how an item is used and develop expressive language to assist in explaining how an item is used.
Change up the activity!
You can modify this activity as much as you like!
You can go on a ‘yellow’ treasure hunt if your child requires some assistance in colour concepts, or invite your child to find items that are ‘on the table’ if your child may need some help learning about prepositions (words that tell us the location of items, used frequently in instructions). The sky is the limit!
If your child finds answering some of the questions tricky, it’s a great teaching opportunity.
Extension activity:
Ask your child to find items that begin with a specific sound. E.g. ‘Find 5 things in the living room that start with the /s/ sound!’
‘Find 5 items in your bedroom that you use every day. Bring the treasure sack back to me and tell me why they’re useful!’
We hope that you have fun treasure hunting! Feel free to share your child’s favourite treasure with us on this post! 🙂