Cooking is always a busy rush for most of us, you can Share and Encourage Learning Moments:

• Counting food together. Hold up your fingers and point as you say each one. “Okay, let’s check if we have 5 pieces of sweetcorn.
  
• There’s lots of numbers to talk about with cooking. 
• Discuss measurements while doing preparation for baking. Children love learning to measure out the items – and it can be helpful too! 
• As well as measuring, there are numbers in the ingredients we use and the things we cook or make.  
• If you are cooking sweetcorn, you could have your child hand you sweetcorn and count how many there are. You could ask them to help peel the sweetcorn – and talk about all the little pieces inside!  Wow there’s lots there!  If you need to cut the sweetcorn in half, after you have done it, you could ask them how many pieces are there now.  
• There’s also opportunities to talk about spelling. Spelling out the first letter of items you are using eg. S is for sweet, C is for Corn.  Or Y for Yellow, G for Green.   Or M is for Milk when making breakfast. 

Doing the washing is an everyday task where you can Share and Encourage Learning:

• Give the pegs to your child, get them to stand a short distance from the peg container and see if they can throw them into the container. They could try counting as they play
• A question to spark curiosity: I wonder how many different games we can think of where you have to throw a ball? Like, footy or netball. What can you think of?
• Ask your child to get you 4 green pegs. You can change it a bit by asking for different colours. Now can I have six blue pegs? 
• If child is a little older have the child sell the pegs to you (with imaginary money of course). If 1 green peg is $1, and I need 2pegs. How much money will I need?
• You could have the child name the clothes going on and off the clothesline or identify who owns the clothing items.
• Your child could help sort out piles of clothes based on who owns the clothing items. The washing will be organised and ready for folding!
• Ask your child to match socks or sort out by colours.
• Discuss the process of washing the clothes.
  

Shopping can be a time to Share and Encourage Learning. It is a great way to help children get involved and can help them to be less restless. Shopping can be fun. Children enjoy watching and learning and participating. 

• Ask your child to name items that you put in the trolley or have them tick off their own list.
  
• Ask or talk about each shopping items to your child, they will love the attention and you get your shopping done!
• When shopping ask your child to compare weights of different shopping items. Maybe a bag of potatoes (heavy) with box of cereal (light). If there are scales in the fruit and veg section, you can have some fun weighing them! Questions to spark curiosity: What is the biggest animal you can think of? Could you weigh that animal on the scales in the shop?
• Play a game of identifying if your shopping items are soft or hard.
• Ask your child to identify the biggest and the smallest items in the trolley.
• Ask your child to name the shopping items and if they are able to, they can help to put them on the checkout.
• Letting your child become involved in paying. You could give the item to the seller and let the child give the money and receive the change. This could start a great conversation about the value of money.

Out and About are great opportunities to get your child learning while you doing your everday activites like when you are at the doctors, weekend football, or you are out as a family in the park. Share and Encourage learning moments:

• Memory games. eg. use magazine or book while in the doctors waiting room.
  
• Car games. eg. iSpy using letters or colours.
  
• Have your child find the numbers on the back of the football jerseys.
• Talk about what you see in the park.

The lounge room is usually the place you want to stop and put your feet up to relax.  Here are a few ideas for how to Share and Encourge learning -  even while you are relaxing:

• Using items in the lounge room play a mystery game. You could ask your child to find 5 items from around the house and lay them out on the floor. You close your eyes and have your child remove one item. Take turns trying to find the missing item. If your child gets stuck when it’s their turn to work out what is missing, give them some clues – like the colour of the item or what it is used for – or even the letter it starts with. You can change the items to make it more challenging. Here’s a tricky question: What can we do when we have lots and lots of jobs to do so we can remember to do them?
  
• If your child is a little younger, you can make cubby houses with chairs, cushions and sheets. You can talk about how they are building their structure! Mention colours and of course, there are letters and numbers as well! How many cushions have you got? What letter does two start with? 
  
• Have your child build something with blocks, cushions or other items, This is a great activity to discuss balancing and weight!
  

While in the backyard. Or while doing the gardening. Or perhaps hanging out the washing – You can Share and Encourage learning by:

• Using items in the garden or around the house ask your child to create something. Encourage the child to create, and you be the helper. Questions to spark curiosity: Could we make a tower out of just grass? What about if we used just leaves? Why not?
• You could talk about the flowers, herbs or veggies in the garden. Their colours, what grows and when – and if you know the names of some of them. It can also be fun to show children how you find out the names.
  
• Working on the car is interesting. You can talk about what needs to be done.  Explaining processes is a great way for a child to learn.
  

Bath time is a great opportunity to Share and Encourage learning. Here’s some ideas:

• Sing a song – try a counting rhyme using your fingers to show the number.
  
• Tell a story.
  
• Play a game.
  
• Name or talk about colours you see in the bathroom.
  
• Use the bath toys to demonstrate actions like washing or swimming.
  
• You can talk about water and hot, cold and warm.