In our 4th and final book of the B4G Special Edition 5 Activity Books, we decided to add an extra component to the stimulation packs to help better prepare your child for Grade R. Please remember that although the activities in this book are based on the NCF aims, they provide a therapeutic outlook on stimulation and therefore it is still very important that your child attends an ECD centre. Our B4G Special Edition 5 Activity Book 4 of 4 is now available for free download, just click on the link alongside. In addition, we added a short paper-based activity book for your child to practice drawing and colouring in. This book is also available for free download, just click on the link alongside. Have fun doing all the activities together with your child.

B4G Parent Wellness 3 “In every young child who believes in himself, is a parent who believed first.” -Matthew Jacobson The last few months have been stressful for everyone, including your children. Just as you feel stress, so does your child and often they do not know how to deal with these new feelings. This in itself can cause more stress for you at home. We so often hear that children model us and do what we do – it is for this reason that we have focused on developing a range of Parent Wellness books to help you as a parent to develop and maintain techniques to manage your stress better to be a model for your children and to help you to be more aware of your self to take

Over the past two books we have addressed different components of your child's holistic development to help you better prepare your child for formal schooling. Our next book, B4G Special Edition 5 Activity Book 3 of 4, is now available for free download, just click on the link alongside. This activity book focuses on how to use simple household items to help stimulate and play with your child to learn and develop according to the standards of the NCF. Although the activities in this book are based on the NCF aims, they provide a therapeutic outlook on stimulation and therefore it is still very important that your child attends an ECD centre where many opportunities are provided for your child to learn. It is our hope that with the combination of the therapeutic and teaching outlook,

B4G Special Edition 5 Activity Book 2 of 4 We are excited to share the second activity book with you. We hope you, your child and the whole family had fun with the last activities. Imagine, how much learning happened while you spent the time with your child to create, explore, and play. As we mentioned in Book 1, children need to have mastered certain skills in their development before going to school so that they can cope with the demands placed on them. Although the activities in this book are based on the NCF aims, they provide a therapeutic outlook on stimulation and therefore it is still very important that your child attends an ECD centre where many opportunities are provided for your child to learn. It is our hope that

Since publishing and distributing our B4G Parent Wellness Book 1, we have been blown away with the comments and feedback received. It is because of this that we decided to develop a new B4G Parent Wellness Book 2 keeping in mind the statement "self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what's left of you" (Katie Reed). This statements speaks straight to the heart of the development of this book. Remember you as a parent need to find your own strategy that works for you to help you to deal with your own stress before you can give the world the best of you. B4G Parent Wellness 2

At TLI we believe that each child is unique and special and each one has different sets of abilities. As children grow, there are specific behaviours, skills or tasks that they should be able to do at specific ages – these are called developmental milestones. Although each child develops and learns at their own pace, developmental milestones help parents, teachers and professionals to identify if there are areas your child is struggling with and may require support for. Our next set of activity books, B4G Special Edition Activity Book 5, are closely linked to a document known as the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) which was developed by our government as guideline for early childhood development (ECD) centres to follow in order to improve children’s learning experiences, enhance development in a holistic manner and lay a

Michelle Obama once said “to be a good parent you need to take care of yourself so that you have the physical and emotional energy to take care of your family.” It is with this in mind that The Learning Initiative and Blocks 4 Growth Team has developed this Parent Wellness booklet. This booklet is focused on you as a parent and gives you different coping strategies to help you take care of yourself. It is important that you find a strategy that works for you and helps you to deal with stress. The lockdown has been a traumatic event for everyone and being the head of a household is not easy, especially with this extra stress, so it is vital that you look after yourself to be a role model for not only

We will be introducing our B4G Special Edition 4 Activity Book on Monday, 29 June 2020. Our B4G Special Edition 4 Activity Book focuses on learning through play. Play should be fun for your child and inspire creativity. Albert Einstein once said that ‘creativity is contagious’ and that we should ‘pass it on’. This is a great motto for this activity book as children learn by seeing and doing. While doing these activity ideas with your child using simple, recyclable materials your child will pick up on your enthusiasm and creativity and become inspired by just watching you. Download the activity book to find different ideas of activities to do together with your child. Click here to download B4G Special Edition Activity Book 4 Throughout the activity book,

From Monday, 18 May 2020, we will introduce new activities on our social media platforms for you and your child to complete that link to our Special Edition Activity Book 3, which has two parts. This book can be downloaded directly by clinking on the button below, if you do not have it already. If you cannot print this book, be creative and re-create it for your child using pen and paper. Our Special Edition Activity Book 3 will be our main focus over the next two weeks, so follow us day by day. Remember children learn through play and repetition, so make your activities fun and be sure to repeat them throughout the week, not only once. Each activity will be a two part activity in order to focus on all areas of

As we are all aware, our president addressed us as a nation to discuss the way forward for the country. He stated: “Fellow South Africans, This evening, I stand before you to ask you to endure even longer. I have to ask you to make even greater sacrifices so that our country may survive this crisis and so that tens of thousands of lives may be saved. After careful consideration of the available evidence, the National Coronavirus Command Council has decided to extend the nation-wide lockdown by a further two weeks beyond the initial 21 days. This means that most of the existing lockdown measures will remain in force until the end of April…. …As we walk this road together, as we struggle to defeat this pandemic, we remain strong and united and resolved.

As we all know, South Africa will be on a full national LOCKDOWN which will begin at midnight Thursday, 26 March 2020, and will continue for 21 days. This means that we are all required to stay home except for essential purposes. Yes, that means that you will stay home with your family for 21 consecutive days! We know this may be frightening, however TLI and the B4G team have decided to dedicate our resources through our social media platforms to help stimulate your child throughout this 21 day period. Over the next few weeks we will be posting some activity ideas for you to do with your child through our social media platforms, if you have not yet liked or followed us, please do this to get our fun updates and activities.

Blocks 4 Growth was developed by The Learning Initiative to better prepare 4-5 year old children for Grade R. With the outbreak of the Coronavirus, we have developed this pamphlet with a few practical ideas of how you can stimulate your child at home. We have also given you tips on how to download a free app that has stories for you to read to your child, as well as extra activity ideas. For even more exciting activities follow us on social media. Don’t forget to share your fun moments with us! Enjoy the time together and play, play, play. It is the best investment you can make! Click here to download our pamphlet