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What should we do today?

Celebrations
-
Event

Duration/age

Duration: 
15 to 30 minutes
Suitable for children: 
3 to 5 years
Location: 
Indoor
Mother and son looking at fish in an aquarium

The holidays are nearly here and you might be wondering what you and your child can do together.

Before you talk to your child about what they want to do over the holidays, do some research to see what free activities are on.

We’ve got the whole day free today. Let’s find out what we can do.

Materials you will need

  • Newspaper
  • Local paper
  • Council website

Alternative tools

  • Government websites
Language development, Planning, Reading, Sorting and grouping, Vocabulary

Talking about what special activities your family can do during the holidays will help your child to develop skills in planning, sequencing and measurement.

As you talk about what you’ll be doing and the order you’ll do it, your child will be learning about sequencing and predicting. As they explore the sequence of events they are exploring time and how long events take to complete.

Talking together about what you will do during the holidays and when it will happen helps your child to explore the different ways we can measure time. Time can be measured by a clock, with numbers or by counting how many days till something happens.

When you talk about time as an event or a routine, children are developing an understanding that we can describe time using different language. Time can be represented as a number on a clock, something that happens regularly or as a one-off event.

The language we use to describe time will help children to plan for an event and know when and how often it will occur.

“We usually go to the library on Saturday but we can go any day as there is no school or kindy.”

  • Calendar, day, week, weekend
  • Time, event, schedule, routine, regular
  • Holidays, vacations, outings, special events
  • Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
  • School, kindy, childcare, work
  • Free event, cost, ticket, purchase price
  • Start time, end time
  • Can we still visit the park if it rains?
  • Do we need to go to the library on the weekend when you aren’t at kindy?
  • Where could we go to have our picnic?
  • How can we find out what time the movie starts?
  1. Use a calendar and put a star or a circle around the date of a special event so your child can see when it will happen.
  2. If your child is younger, only record events that are a week away.
  3. Look at the Out and about section of GreatStart for different ideas and activities to do during the holidays.
  4. You might also like to take a look at the activities Routines and Calendars.
  5. Remember to talk to your child in your home language.
  1. Look at the Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australian Museum websites to discover some different school holiday events.
  2. Your local council often holds activities at the local library

Three to five year olds

  • Go to the park for a picnic. Feed the ducks while you are there.
  • Read the newspaper with your child every day to see what school holiday activities are on.
  • Use a calendar to mark the different activities your family will be doing.