Keeping my oldest daughter (age 6) engaged and interested in the learning process can be difficult at times. I often try to incorporate a play based approach to learning which helps tame her meltdowns and allows for a better learning environment. Since I also have a 2 year old tackling learning using a play based approach also helps bridge their different learning levels. It allows me to keep them both engaged and learning at their correct level at the same time.

Both my daughters enjoy playing doctor. Which gives an opportunity to talk about organs and different body parts. For example when using a toy stethoscope I’m able to talk about the heart and what it does. For my youngest I simply mention that everyone has a heart in their chest and its job is to pump the blood through your body.

On days my oldest daughter isn’t in the mood for reading a book we are able to sit down together and create our own illnesses in which I have her read what I wrote about my made up illness. When I’m able to get her to focus it is also a great writing opportunity for her in which she can write out details about the illness she makes up and we can count that as her writing for the day. Although the other day she was only in the mood for drawing out pictures and writing very little.

To add in a fine motor activity I cut various sizes of yarn and used them as pretend worms in which my youngest removed from her stomach. Since she had a pretend tummy ache from all the yarn worms. When finished we lined up the yarn and went over the concept shortest, longest. In terms of the worm (yarn) sizes in comparism to each other.

When it comes to learning through a play based approach I’ve learned not to take it to seriously, and go with activities you know your children enjoy. My kids lean towards playing doctor therefore I just go with it and add in as much learning to the activity as possible.

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The above items are my Amazon picks for playing doctor and learning about the human body.