As a parent, you may be ready to do anything it takes to ensure that your child grows up to be a happy and successful individual. You’ve probably thought about the best school to enroll them into, the best neighborhood to move to, thought of some extracurricular activities and classes they can take for overall development and mapped out a schedule to accommodate it all. But did you know that sometimes just playing with them will do the trick?

That’s right, contrary to popular belief, your kids don’t need you to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on them. They just need you to be present and play with them in order to learn and grasp concepts easily. Take Learning numbers or colors for example. Anything can seem exciting and engaging during play. This is why game based learning is so highly motivational for kids. So if you want your little ones to learn a skill or a concept quickly, just make a game out of it. This doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated to make either. Here are some games you can make to encourage your kids to learn.

1. Learning The Colors

Here’s all the materials you’ll need:

• Cardboard
• Scissors
• Colored markers
• Balls of yarn or ping-pong balls
• Tempera or acrylic paint

First, start off by making a board using a large piece of cardboard. You can even use a dismantled box if you have one. Next, you need to cut circles out of the cardboard. Each circle can correspond to one color so make sure to cut as many circles as you want colors. Color around the edges of each circle with different colors and write the name of the respective color. Then go ahead and make balls of yarn or get ping-pong balls of all of the colors. The game is to teach your kids the name of the colors while they toss the ball into the same colored circle. Easy and effective!

2. Teach Your Kids About Different Measurements And Materials

This one is a no-brainer because all you really need is sand and water. Now playing with these two together may seem like nothing but a big mess to you. But did you know that playing with sand and water can be essential for introducing your kids to the world of science and math? They can learn about different materials like solids and liquids and grasp what they mean in simple terms. They can start to grasp measurements with cups and other toys, and they can develop their fine motor skills, which are crucial for their development. So the next time they jump into the sand box with a bucket full of water, join in on the fun! Everything is a learning experience after all.

3. Learning Geometric Shapes

This can be quite tricky for some kids so here’s what you’ll need to simplify the learning experience and make it fun:

• 5 feet of poster board
• Adhesive tape
• Colored markers

For this game you can use a poster board of approximately 5 feet or stick together smaller ones until you get the right length. Then draw different geometric shapes, such as circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, rhombuses, etc onto it. You can make them easier to distinguish from each other by painting each Shape in a different color. For example, paint all the triangles purple and all the circles green. This will also make it look far more appealing and engaging to your kids. Then tape the poster board onto the ground as if it were a mat. Now comes the fun part. You can use it to play hopscotch so your child will have to go from one end to the other, always stepping on the same shape. It can also be transformed into a game of Twister, where one extremity is placed on a specific shape while a different one goes on another. This way your kids can take turns learning the shapes or all learn them at once, together.

4. Teach Your Kids Manners With Pretend Play

Toys that encourage kids to role play help enhance their imagination and learn how to interact with the real world. This is a great plus point for parents. New research has been found indicating that we can decrease the chances of kid’s behavioral problems in the future by pretend playing with them with role playing tools (1). How awesome is that! Mothers who didn’t have the chance to be involved in these kinds of games reported having difficulties with handling their children whereas mothers who did, found it easier to teach their children appropriate behaviors in the imaginary world. See, we knew all that time you spent being “sick” wasn’t going to be wasted. Playing games like doctor or house-house or even cooking may seem stereotypical, but this is how your children understand how to behave in appropriate ways in numerous situations and environments.

Teaching your kids new things can sometimes be challenging and stressful. It can even get boring due to all the repetition. This is why it’s so important to find fun ways to help your child learn important lessons. Happy parenting!