How to entertain a little girl when it's not possible to leave the house? Dr Raffaella Demichelis achieved it by combining her love for art & craft and science.
"It started as an idea to give some structure to the lockdown days," she told SBS Italian.
When the lockdown began last year in Perth, the Curtin University researcher was on parental leave after the birth of her second child.
Locked up in the house, she also had - in addition to her newborn - her three-year-old daughter to entertain: "not an easy task, as anyone with children of this age I'm sure will understand," she laughs.
A fun way to learn about shapes Source: courtesy of Raffaella De Michelis
Thanks to the fact that her Italian mother was still with them - after remaining stuck in Australia due to the pandemic - and that nonna could take care of the little one, Raffaella Demichelis was able to dedicate some of her time to the little girl.
On day one they "built different environments and populated them with animals, plants and objects related to that environment by drawing and using different materials and stickers." On day two they did .
"It became our everyday habit to do these activities," she recalls.
"We had a lot of fun and at the end of the day I found it very motivating to put what we had done in a blog to share it with friends, colleagues, relatives, and other people."
From daily ritual, The House of Fun has become over time an online resource that can still offer interesting ideas to those faced with lockdowns with small children.
Every blog post describes the activities and the learning outcomes, showing some pictures of her daughter's creations.
A little bit of art & craft and a little bit of science
To try to do one of the over 50 activities collected by Dr Demichelis in her blog, you don't need any materials that are difficult to find.
"Since I was a child I have always had this passion for making small games or craft objects with what is already at home, typically in the recycling bin", she explains.
Cereal boxes, wrappers, straws ... everything can be used for the House of Fun activities to create something.
Day after day, the little girl experimented with cooking "chemical biscuits" - an opportunity to measure the ingredients and learn something about the equipment that her mother uses at work.
A creative way to learn about the Great Barrier Reef Source: courtesy of Raffaella De Michelis
She learned that ricotta can be made with milk and lemon; she explored the sea depths by reproducing the Coral Reef with cardboard and markers.
If at first, it was not easy to capture the three-year-old's attention, after a while the daily appointment with her mum Raffaella's House of Fun became unmissable.
"She was small but she was very interested. We set aside a couple of hours a day, every day, for activities, which were part of the daily routine."
It was not a question of creating scientific activities in a strict sense, but, as Raffaella underlines, "in every little experiment there are scientific aspects."
A fun activity about Coral reefs & biomineralization Source: courtesy of Raffaella De Michelis
What did Raffaella's little one learn?
"She absorbed information in her own way," notes Raffaella, who was pleasantly surprised by how some learnings resurfaced long after the play activities were performed.
"At a certain point, for example, we learned about the moon phases. After many months we were at the table and she took the round crackers and nibbled them to make them.
"Obviously the real science does not remain, but the curiosity and also the principle stick."
And above all, what will remain will be pleasant and fun memories of a time spent at home in lockdown with a very creative mum.
Raffaella has since gone back to work and has not been able to dedicate as much time to the House of Fun, but the , for anyone who might be looking for ideas to distract a pre-schooler in a fun and affordable way.
