Call for Creating Educational Play and Learning Activities at Home for Children Aged 3 to 10 Years

As a result of the state of emergency caused by COVID-19 and the suspension of the educational programme, SmartUp - the Social Innovation Lab, together with its partners, has been tirelessly working on the development of new functionalities for Eduino, the national web platform for education. One of the new functionalities that the platform will offer is an open library of activities and games for children aged 3 to 10, designed for play and learning at home. To ensure the greatest possible number of activities, and thus as many happy children as possible, we are seeking support from creative educators and parents across the country! For all details and information, please read the entire call, which contains technical and content guidelines. (The same call in Albanian can be found at the following link.)

What is the inspiration for this open call?

Considering that this vacation and summer period will be different for all children and with the aim of providing as many accessible materials as possible, we decided to initiate an open call for creating educational activities according to a predefined template and guidelines. We hope for your support and willingness to contribute some of the creative ideas you use in your work or in playing and learning with your children and students. We ask for your creativity and ability to provide guidance, and we will take care of illustrations, translation, proofreading, and all technical details.

With your dedicated time, you will help build an open treasury of activities that will enable fun, educational, and fulfilling time between parents and children aged 3 to 10, now and for all future generations. The activities in this call will be intended for play at home and will be a permanent part of the Eduino platform.

What kind of activities are we talking about?

Below you will find examples of activities for learning and playing at home:

• educational activity example no. 1 - "My Magnetic Story “
• educational activity example no. 2 - "Mixing Colors “
• educational activity example no. 3 - "From Letter to Word “
• educational activity example no. 4 - "Fruit Math “

Each activity contains basic information, instructions for playing, and attachments for appropriate application or better understanding.

Who is this call intended for?

The call is intended for all educators of children aged 3 to 10, including: preschool teachers, primary school teachers, pedagogues, psychologists, and special educators. The call is also open to all creative parents and individuals who would like to prepare and submit an activity. Activities can be prepared individually or in teams.

Where and by when should the play activities be sent?

Your most creative and fun educational activities for children aged 3 to 10 should be sent to aktivnostieduino@gmail.com, with the note in the email: "Educational activities for home conditions."Before sending the activities, please carefully read all the requirements and guidelines written below.

The call is open until June 20. We encourage you, if possible, to send us your activities as soon as possible so that we can immediately prepare and publish them visually. The number of activities you can send us is unlimited. You can send them in Macedonian and Albanian.

The activities will be checked, proofread, and translated by SmartUp. All necessary accompanying templates, cards, and/or graphics will be prepared by us, in accordance with the guidelines and examples provided by the activity submitters and in accordance with the guidelines listed below in the call.

How to create an educational activity? What are the guidelines?

• Technical aspects:

Activities must be prepared according to the template format which you can download at this link. At this link you can download the instructions for filling out the template, which will serve as a guide for preparing and better structuring your play activities.

1. Activities should be described with clearly defined instructions for performing the activity according to the given template by filling in all the mandatory fields of the template.
2. For the activities, you can also send us photos, drawings, links to videos, and additional diagrams/templates for better explanation and easier application. It would be very useful if you manage to photograph or record the execution of the activity. Also, if you want, you can complement the activity with accompanying illustrations, for example, drawings of them; or materials (e.g., cards, color cutouts, etc.), and you need to provide a clear description for their preparation by our graphic designer or attach your own example.

• Content aspects:

First of all, think of creative ways to use the time of parents and children at home. Be creative, think about how you can stimulate children's curiosity and try to ensure that the activities you propose have an aspect of learning and knowledge from various fields. The theme of the activity is free, at your choice, meaning you can prepare activities for handicrafts, physical activity, nature and science, mathematics, mental health, etc.

What should I keep in mind when creating the activities?

There are a few things we would like you to pay attention to when creating the activities:

1. To be played at home

- optionally, you can consider short activities in nature, with a small number of participants (at the family level);

1. to require as few resources and additional purchases as possible so that parents do not have to leave their home;
2. if possible, to use some of the recyclable materials used at home, such as newspaper paper, fruit peels, plastic or cardboard bottles, toilet paper rolls, and similar;
3. if possible, come up with activities that children can perform and create independently or with little help from a parent (depending on age).

When creating the materials, you can use an activity you already have and have conducted in one of your classes and adapt it for parents and home conditions, or create new activities intended for this occasion. We encourage parents to think about activities they have done with their children, which they can document and share.

How will the activities be displayed on the platform? What will that library of materials look like?

The educational activities will be published in the section of the platform where all users, parents, children, educators will be able to search for activities by topic, age, preparation time, implementation time, and similar.

This section will soon be available on the platform, but you can see what it will look like in the following photo:

Thanks to the large number of educators who dedicated themselves to creating these educational activities in the past period, the library of initial content has already been created, and with your help, we hope this platform will become a treasury of a large number of materials where primary school teachers, preschool teachers, and parents will be able to find materials and get inspiration for better conducting lessons, applying new ways of learning through play, and creative tools to stimulate socio-emotional development in children aged 3 to 10.

Information about the Eduino platform and the project:

This call is part of the project "Creating an environment that enables improving the quality of teaching and learning through co-creation and innovation" #Inno4Edu which is funded by the Government of the United Kingdom through the British Embassy in Skopje, with support from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Bureau for Education Development and UNICEF. This project is implemented by SmartUp – the Social Innovation Lab.

If you want to read more about the project, follow the following link.