Christmas is here and now it’s the perfect time to finish that holiday shopping spree with gifts that will create a bigger impact on your children, than just toys that will eventually end up collecting dust. Or maybe, if you’re like me, and still haven’t decided what to give to your kiddos, then why not investigate less traditional, more educational, and highly entertaining ideas? Yes, most of you all know me as Lina Correa, Bricks 4 Kidz Kendall and TeKniK LABS owner and, even if my job is to provide educational enrichment programs for kids, today I wanted to dedicate this week’s blog entry to help you, a fellow parent, to find other types of gifts that will actually last for a lifetime!
Many celebrity parents like Serena Williams and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are talking about how the perfect gift might not be the hottest toy on the shelf, but actually, they think about gifts as the perfect time to bond with your kids with cool Educational activities, and guess what…It’s not only about LEGO® 😉 building!
Get Baking!
Believe it or not, cooking or baking can be a great way to spend Christmas time with your kids doing something that you all will enjoy and kids can also feel proud and excited with a great sense of accomplishment afterward. There’s a HUGE selection of baking kits for kids out there that range anywhere from $20 to $60. Advantages of this activity: Amazing bonding time based on something that we all like, food! Direction following (recipes), and a sense of accomplishment (with a great tasting treat), can help your child discover hidden talents. You might have a great chef in the family and don’t even know it yet!
Puzzles bring the family together…
I’m going to confess something to all of you, with the Pandemic in full swing, I was looking into other types of building activities that could take away the spotlight on LEGO® My 13-year old daughter and 6-year old boy have always been helping me prepare my Bricks 4 Kidz classes (both virtual and in-person) and have built several times all the models we have at Bricks 4 Kidz (over 200 different machines and gadgets!) so naturally, I still wanted them to continue exercising their creative mind with building activities, but wanted for them to also look into a different direction and guess what…we became a Puzzle family! Today I decided in making this a Holiday tradition where we would build at least a 500+ pieces puzzle every year during the holidays. At first, I thought puzzles were hard and, somewhat boring to be honest, but after seeing how my entire family was attracted to the puzzle by just having it laying around in our family room, I was blown away. Also, regular 2D puzzles don’t hurt when you accidentally step on them 😊
Get a science kit or creative box
For those kids that enjoy learning more about how the world works and when you still want to encourage STEM-based learning; there are several options out there from stand-alone to subscription-based challenges that bring space, nature, and other cool science concepts into the living room. These activities are great for you to follow together with your child or children and they are also grouped in terms of age range and topics.
Give joy to those who need it the most
If there’s something in Christmas that makes this time of the year super special is that more than a gift itself, Christmas is a celebration of GIVING even more than receiving. You can teach your child the power of giving by supporting initiatives that provide essential items to those who need them the most. If you’re looking into how to make an impact on someone’s life and start teaching your child how to get involved, you can go to sites like kyndkit.com and choose a kit to support teachers, children with life-threatening diseases, homelessness, military heroes, mental health, and even LGBTQ initiatives! There’s no greater joy than that of giving, and making this a family activity where you can explain the impact of those initiatives that you support and why you support them, can help your child understand and maybe even become an advocate to contribute to our society’s well being.
So…No LEGO® this time?
Of course NOT, 😊 LEGO-building is always a great way to nurture your child’s imagination while practicing direction following, and understanding the amazing world of engineering and mechanics. Here, I do want to emphasize that even more than a LEGO® set, my suggestion has to do actually with Virtual classes that you can share some quality bonding time with your child. All our LEGO Challenges classes (perfect for kids ages 6-8) are also perfect for you, as a parent, to attend and help your child with creative ideas on how to complete the challenge of the day in a safe online setting with kids from other parts of the world! Benefits of this program: Direction following, sense of achievement, project-based learning, social interaction, creativity, and Educational Play! amongst others… 😊
Last but not least, CODING is here to stay!
COVID-19 has brought many big challenges upon us, but it has also allowed us to ‘think outside the box’ and bring new alternatives to keep our kids engaged in virtual environments with Educational and fun activities. With TeKniK LABS, we were able to create just that! Today we have an offering of over 15 different groups that are learning to CODE virtually from the comfort and safety of home using the most popular sandbox games out there: Minecraft and Roblox. If your child is into gaming and Computer Science and he/she hasn’t tried out or new coding programs, now it’s the perfect time to do so! You can schedule a FREE trial class of either program (Minecraft or Roblox) or even both! These activities have great pricing and are structured with virtual and live instructors that teach your child how to code in JavaScript or LUA while playing in a collaborative setting with kids from all over the world!
Can you share with us any other activity that can enrich our children’s lives? Toys are great to nurture your child’s creativity, but there’s nothing like Educational Play activities that can tap into your child’s development and ignite the spark for Science, Technology, Engineering, and even Math! Comment below 😊
Lina Correa
Mom & Bricks 4 Kidz Kendall Owner