Sheila Ellison
Page 14
* Words of Wisdom *
Since we rotate houses for playgroup, the host picks up the toys afterwards (when the children are too young to really help). That way, parents only pick up toys at their own house where they know where they belong—and the other parents get the morning off.
—Leigh Ann, York, Nebraska
240
Presto Pizza
Age Range: 21 months and up
Create a pizza parlor. Gather felt of several colors (tan for the crust, red for the sauce, yellow for the cheese, black for the olives, green for the bell peppers, pink for pepperoni). Cut the tan felt into extra-large-sized pizza crusts. Then cut out the colored felt to use as ingredients to put on top of the crust. Give each group of two or three kids one crust and have them work to make a pizza by decorating it with the other pieces of felt. Serve pizza as a snack.
241
Group Dance Games
Age Range: 21 months and up
Freeze dance: Most children are wonderful dancers—they wiggle, turn, jump, and move to music. Turn on some music and tell the children to dance until the music stops. When the music stops, everyone freezes. They can march around, crawl around, or whatever they like, but whenever the music stops, they stop.
Touch dance: Have the kids stand in a circle. Tap one child on the shoulder to begin the dance while everyone watches. When finished the dancer touches the child next to him, and that child takes a turn in the spotlight. The dances can be very short or up to thirty seconds. They can be fast, slow, up high, or down low. Encourage the kids to keep the dance moving around the circle.
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Sharing
Age Range: 21 months and up
It is not easy for kids this age to share a toy. It’s totally age-appropriate for children under three years to play alongside one another, each with their own toy rather than with one another. Here are some sharing ground rules:
Playdate toys are for sharing, whether at home or out and about. Put away or keep at home your child’s favorite toys if she isn’t prepared to let others play with them.
Expect toy-yanking and lots of “Mine!” struggles, regardless—toddlers are very possessive.
Help them to negotiate with one another (trading toys, offering one coveted toy for another), and encourage them to be gentle.
Think of games and activities that include the whole group in a physical activity or individual art or craft project. If toys are to be the focus, make sure each child brings her own.
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Field Trips
Age Range: 24 months and up
Local bakery: Most toddlers are amazed to watch a donut being stamped from a mold, a wedding cake decorated, or cookies made. It is especially fun when they get to taste the results. Call local bakeries to see if any offer tours.
Pizza restaurant: Many pizza chain restaurants offer schools and playgroups a special tour during morning hours when pizza production is slow. Sometimes they even let the kids shape the dough and make their own pizzas.
Farm: Depending on the make-up of your neighborhood you may have a dairy farm, orchard, or crop-producing facility in your immediate area. Find out what time of day or year is the best time to watch the farmer in action. Read about the kind of farm you’ll be seeing so that the kids are prepared.
Fire station: Most fire departments look forward to a visit from toddlers. Children can climb into the truck, push the buttons, and put on the firefighters’ hats.
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Playgroup Plus
Is your playgroup getting boring? Here are a few ways to spice it up:
Turn your weekly playgroup into a potluck once a month. Have each parent bring a plate of food. Sit down and enjoy each other over a meal. Hey, it’s not a restaurant, but at least the kids can play with each other while you enjoy a meal with adult company. Hire a baby-sitter!
Incorporate a theme like bubbles, cars, colors, or animals. Have everyone bring something to do with the theme (a container of bubbles, favorite trucks/cars, or ride-on vehicles), and watch as the kids get excited about the new activities.
Have each child bring one toy for sharing each week. Sit in a circle with children holding their own toys. Turn on music and let everyone play with his or her toy for three to five minutes. When the music stops, have them swap by passing the toys around the circle.
Change the scenery. You can move beyond local parks and private homes. Try a gym, YMCA, or amusement park.
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The Parent Squad
There is much to be done in a parent’s day. Be creative and extend your playgroup concept to include cleaning, cooking, or other household projects. Each week choose a different house to “work on.” The parent at that house gets to watch or play with all the kids while the other parents work on a project the host parent chooses. The group could clean the house, cook a meal, assemble a piece of furniture, straighten cabinets, or whatever project the parent would really like help finishing. It’s funny how working in someone else’s home is much more fun than working in your own.
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Toddler Friendships
Young children will learn sharing, compassion, negotiation, and compromise from one another. Toddler friendships build self-esteem and boost creativity—and they’re fun! You can encourage friendship-forming play through make-believe games that encourage role-playing or other games that require children to interact in positive ways.
Help your little friends bond with a theme—a color they wear at the same time, special macaroni necklaces they share, or a dance they learn together.
Put on a puppet show where each child has a part and is valued for participating.
Play store, firehouse, house, or other group games which allow each child to attend to his own interests while participating in the group play.
Make sure to model play time manners and sit close by to monitor interactions until the friendship is established.
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Co-op Baby-Sitting
Co-op baby-sitting is different from a playgroup. A co-op is arranged as a baby-sitting option. It takes some organization, but can be very effective and successful. Here’s how it works: there is a list of people who belong to the co-op. When you need a baby-sitter, you can call the co-op list of names until you find someone who is available. There is a person who keeps track of everyone’s hours. If you baby-sit three hours, then the coop owes you three hours, so you don’t exactly pay the person back who baby-sat for you. Co-op baby-sitting is generally done in the home of the person doing the baby-sitting, since most people involved also have children. The co-op can be as big or small as you like. It’s a good opportunity to meet other parents and save money on baby-sitting at the same time. Take some time to brainstorm ways you can organize a coop so you can have a little time to yourself.
Outdoor Play: Parks and Recreation
248
Mud Play
Age Range: 15 months and up
Materials
Dirt and water=mud
Outdoor work area
Bucket of water or hose
Small shovel or spoon
Cookie sheet
Find a place in the yard or playground where there is “clean” dirt. Cleared garden areas are ideal. Loosen a two- to three-foot area with the shovel. Add water from a hose or bucket, and mix it all up with your hands, spade, shovel, spoon, stick, or other tools.
Make some smooshy, squishy mush. If you’re brave, roll around in it, rub it on your skin, see how it feels squishing between your toes or fingers. Then hose each other off.
Smack, stir, and push the mud around as you make figures or shapes out of the mud. Place your creations on cookie sheets, plastic lids, or a piece of wood. Decorate with sand, grass, pebbles, flower petals, and twigs. This can also be done inside if you have a large tub and don’t mind cleaning up.
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Pavement Painting
Age Range: 15 months and up
On a dry, warm day, give your child a bucke
t of water, one or two paint brushes, and an old sponge. Find a safe driveway, wooden deck, or piece of pavement, and let her paint large pictures or patterns with the water on the cement or wood. Pictures will dry and disappear, so there will always be more room to paint. Just refill the bucket and begin a new masterpiece as you paint away the day.
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Sand Play
Age Range: 18 months and up
Sand picture: Fill spray bottles with water and food coloring to make the colors red, blue, green, and yellow. Flatten out the sand on the top of the sandbox by running a piece of wood or a flat stick over the top. Use the colored water spray to paint a picture in the sand. Turn the sand over and start again.
Dig for treasure: Hide objects in the sand and have your child dig for the lost treasure. Use gold spray paint to make gold nuggets out of rocks. Bury them in the sand and have your toddler go digging for gold! Sand sculpture: Wet a pile of sand so it looks like a small hill. Make sure it is wet all the way through. Find nature objects like sticks, rocks, and feathers to stick into the sand to make a sculpture.
* Words of Wisdom *
To remove sand easily after a day at the beach or afternoon in the sandbox, sprinkle some cornstarch on a dry washcloth and gently rub the sand off.
—Phillip, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
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Water-Balloon Games
Age Range: 18 months and up
Hot potato: On a summer day when you don’t mind getting wet, fill a balloon with water and poke small holes in it with a safety pin. Have your child sit across from you as you pass the balloon back and forth. You’ll have lots of laughs and squeals as the water randomly squirts each player.
Water-balloon toss: Fill a few balloons with water. Hold one end of a towel as your child holds the other. The adult kneels on the grass as the child stands. Move the balloon around the towel without letting it drop to the ground. Try tossing it in the air and catching it in the towel.
Balloon crash: Fill many small water balloons with water and let your child throw them onto the pavement, against a wall, or into the air. Watch them pop when they hit the hard surface.
H2O Hoops: Make a hoop with your arms and let your child try to drop or toss the balloon into the hoop.
As with all balloon activities, make sure all pieces are picked up and thrown away. Balloons are a choking hazard.
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Sheet Design
Age Range: 21 months and up
Materials
Spray bottles
Poster or fabric paint
Old sheet
Clothesline
Clothespins
Hang the sheet on the clothesline using the clothespins. Put a rock on each corner of the sheet where it hits the ground to keep it from flapping in the wind. Fill each spray bottle half full with poster paint. Fill the rest of the bottle with water. Begin to spray the sheet with the colored paint. Use a variety of colors. Make whatever design you wish. Poster paint washes out of clothes, but fabric paint is permanent, so make sure your child is dressed accordingly. If you use fabric paint, these sheets can be used as bed decoration.
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Do the Hula
Age Range: 21 months and up
Bring hula hoops to the park with you; use several sizes if you have them.
Use them as targets for ring, rock, or beanbag tossing.
Lay them out as stepping or hopping “stones” for a game of toddler hopscotch.
Hold them up and let your child crawl through them.
Use a large one for a game of horse. Stand inside the hoop with your child directly in front of you. You will hold the hula hoop up as she holds the front. Say “giddyap” as you gallop along together and “whoa” if you go too fast; take turns being horse and rider.
If you remember how to actually use a hula hoop, your child will be very impressed to watch it spin ’round and ’round your waist!
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Hill Games
Age Range: 24 months and up
Hills are great fun for toddlers. Watching Mom or Dad roll down, chasing a ball to the bottom, or climbing up to begin again will be the highlight of your toddler’s day. Make sure before you begin your hill play that there are no major holes on the hill, no large rocks, and no patches of poisonous or prickly plants. A grass hill is the best. Sand dunes also work, but sand can get into the mouth and eyes. Start with a ball and watch it roll down the hill, using new words and encouraging your child to repeat them. Bring many balls so you can watch them roll down all at once or one at a time. Sit at the bottom of the hill and let your child throw the balls up the hill and watch as the balls roll back down. Then show your child how to tuck his arms to his chest in preparation for rolling sideways down the hill. Walk behind your child, helping straighten him out and pushing when he stops rolling.
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Shadow Fun
Age Range: 24 months and up
Shadow dancing: This is fun to do with two or more people. Have each person begin dancing as she watches her own shadow move. Then try to get your shadows to dance with each other.
Shadow tag: Instead of tagging the person, who then becomes it, you tag the shadow of the person.
Drawing shadows: Have kids make funny poses as you trace their shadows with fabric paint or markers on a sheet masking-taped to the ground. Once the outline is drawn, let the kids paint a design. Use the sheet as funky, colorful bedding afterward! This can also be done on butcher paper.
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Sprinkler and Hose Games
Age Range: 24 months and up
Sprinkler dance: Turn the sprinkler on and encourage all the kids to dance under it. When the water is turned off, everyone stops moving. Whoever keeps moving sits down on the grass. Whoever is turning the water on and off decides who gets to sit down. The winner is the last child left standing.
Hide-and-seek tag: This is a game of tag where the sprinkler is home. Have all the kids run away from the sprinkler as the person who is “it” tries to catch them. The goal is to get back under the sprinkler before getting tagged.
Limbo: Use the hose stream as a limbo bar and encourage the kids to go under it. They can crawl, duck, or roll to get under the water. Keep lowering the stream of water, making it difficult for the kids to get under it without getting wet.
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High Kites
Age Range: 30 months and up
Materials
Markers
Crepe paper streamers
Plastic grocery bag
Paper plates
Tape, string, twine, or yarn
Long before your child is able to fly a kite on his own, he will be fascinated with kites when he sees them flying in the sky. Parks with large, open, grassy areas tend to attract kite-fliers. Help your child make a kite to hold and run with.
Paper-plate kite: Attach a string to the back of a paper plate with tape, or poke two holes near the center and run the string through and knot it. Tape on colorful streamers for the kite’s tail. Then hold the string and run with it. This kind of kite doesn’t fly high in the sky; it simply blows in the wind behind your toddler. Draw designs or a face on the plate to decorate. Plain crepe paper cut into streamers is fun to wave in the wind all by itself.
Grocery-bag kite: Tie the handles of a plastic shopping bag together with the end of a ball of string (or a roll of kite string). Staple or tape a few two-foot lengths of ribbon to the bottom of the bag for kite tails. Run around the park in the wind. As the bag fills with air, it will start to fly, and you can let out string as it dives and soars.
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Flowering Names
Age Range: 30 to 36 months
Materials
Wildflower seeds
Stick
Garden plot or window box filled with dirt
Prepare the soil of a section of the garden at least four by three feet by removing stones, weeds, and other debris. Use the stick to write your child’s name in the soil, making the grooves o
ne inch deep. You can also draw a simple design or shape. Evenly sprinkle the wildflower seeds into the lines. Instead of covering the seeds with soil, simply press them into the grooves with your hands. Water lightly every other day. Your child will be able to see his name or design growing as the seedlings appear and then grow into flowers.
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Outdoor Obstacle Course
Age Range: 30 to 36 months
Materials
Old tires or hula hoops
Laundry baskets
Jump rope
Cardboard boxes or cartons