Try these activities at home with your child year round.
Day 1: Do yoga with your child
Day 2: Create a kitchen band with pots, spoons, etc. Experiment with different utensils on different materials and striking the pots and pans with different levels of strength. Practice keeping a beat, making your own music, or drumming along to a favorite song.
Day 3: Play basketball inside with rolled socks and a laundry basket. Practice tossing the socks from increasing distances or over obstacles.
Day 4: Draw and write outside with chalk or paintbrushes and water. Use your creativity to draw whatever you want! Water and paint brushes works best on dry surfaces like wood or pavement.
Day 5: Use children’s literature to share examples of being helpful. Here are several examples of books you can read with your child:
Stand Tall, Mary Lou Melon by Patty Lovell,
The Wonderful Things You Will Be by Emily Winfield Martin,
Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by Kimberly & James Dean,
She Persisted Around the World: 13 Women Who Changed History by Chelsea Clinton,
The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds,
What If Everybody Did That? By Ellen Javernick,
Small Acts of Kindness by James Vollbracht,
We’re All Wonders by R. J. Palacio.
Your local library might have these and many other wonderful options!
Day 6: Have an indoor picnic lunch. Lay a blanket on the floor and have towels handy for any spills. Pretend you are going on a great adventure!
Day 7: Cook healthy meals together for the week ahead. Children can help with several tasks in the kitchen. Here is a link to an article that lists different ways children can help in the kitchen by age.
Another resource.
*Please note that these are guidelines, and you should take into consideration your child’s abilities and temperament. We also want to mention that infants should be a part of the cooking experience, while taking into consideration their safety without restricting their movements for long periods of time, such as in a high chair. Here is an excerpt about infants participating in the cooking experience: “Set them up someplace safe — a highchair, playpen, bouncer — and give them a few adult-sized cooking tools to bang around. Wooden spoons, whisks, spatulas, non-breakable mixing bowls, and measuring cups and spoons are all fair game here. Talk to them about what you’re doing. If you’re cooking food for their meals, let them smell and touch the ingredients. This is all about making cooking a fun, interesting thing they can watch and experience.”
Day 8: Fly a kite! There are many places in Gratiot County you can go
Parks of Gratiot County:
http://www.gratiotmi.com/departments/parks
http://www.gratiotmi.com/Departments/Parks/Pompeii-Park
Alma’s parks
Breckenridge’s Park
Ithaca’s Parks
Riverdale’s Park
City of St. Louis Parks
Wheeler’s Park
Day 9: Donate old clothes to a children’s charitable organization. The Baby Pantry in Alma is a great place to take your items if you have items for young children! Open to all Gratiot County residents with children under 5 years of age. Foster Closet of Gratiot County provides new and like new clothes, toys, and toiletries for foster children. Local childcares and schools can always use spare sets of clothes for spills and accidents.
Day 10: Practice a family safety drill and review safety procedures.
It is a good idea to talk with children in a calm, factual manner about what to do in case there is ever an emergency.
Some family safety drills you can practice are:
1. Fire: Talk about ways to exit the home if there is ever a fire. Activate your smoke detector, so your children will know what it sounds like. Talk to your local fire department about ways to help your family in case of emergency.
2. Tornado: Talk about where to go in your home if there is a tornado, and listen for your area’s emergency siren the next time it is tested. Gratiot County Emergency Management has some advice.
3. Evacuation: Weather evacuating your home for carbon monoxide or evacuating the area for flood or other reasons, make a plan. Where will you meet? How will you contact each other if you get separated? Talk with your local police department about local safe shelters in an emergency, and how to prepare your family.
4. Medical Emergency: Talk with your children about what to do in a medical emergency: What if Mom or Dad are sleeping and you can’t wake them up? What do you do if Mom or Dad are bleeding a lot? Talk about where the first aid supplies in your house are, and how to call 911. Contact your local emergency medical response personnel about helping you with this talk.
*Remember the age, abilities, and temperament of your child as you plan this activity. Reassure your child that when you plan and practice your response to these types of emergencies, you are helping everyone in the family to stay safe. If these talks and practicing cause your child to be scared or worried over several days, consider talking with a Child Development professional on ways to help soothe your child’s worries.
Day 11: Plan a play-date with a classmate or friend.
It can be at a park, a children’s museum, or in each other’s home. Play some games and have fun!
Playing with other children helps children develop their social and emotional skills, a critical component for school success.
“Resist solving problems for preschool children; instead guide with questions. When children turn to you for help, resist separating children, isolating them in chairs, or telling them exactly what to do. Instead, coach them in the basic steps of problem solving.
Give each child a chance to speak. Ask questions that encourage them to analyze the situation and options. ‘What is the problem?’ ‘What have you already tried to solve it?’ ‘How did it work?’ ‘Is there something else you can do?’ After brainstorming possible alternatives, analyze the pros and cons of each solution together. By voting or verbal agreement, select and carry out a plan. If the problem recurs, go back to
“Offer feedback and appreciation. Comment on productive problem solving: ‘I heard you and Andy arguing over the red crayon. That was a good idea to reassure him you’d give it to him next.’ Or: ‘I heard you telling Trisha you were angry she knocked down your block building; that was good
“Explore ways to amends after conflict. After
not just lip service of ‘I’m sorry.‘”
Day 12: Set up an obstacle course inside or out. Here is a link to 25 ideas for obstacle courses. Practice going over, under, around, and through different obstacles. Try running, climbing, jumping, and crawling. Be creative, make it fun! For more fun, go through the course with your child!
Day 13: Find an object around the house for every letter of the alphabet. Get out your Eye Spy’s, telescopes, and magnifying glasses! It is time for a scavenger hunt! Learning is best when we all have fun together! You can do this on a walk, in the car, or in the store!
Day 14: Family Pajama Party! Relax, play a game or read a story together. Cozy up with a warm blanket or make a special snugly spot like a fort.
Day 15: Limit the use of electronic media; go outside and explore. Children need hands on activities and interaction to develop, and electronic media should be limited. More information about the recommended media use for children.
Day 16: Find the beat to connect music, movement, and math. Practice clapping, drumming, or stomping to the beat of the music while counting.
Day 17: Measure your ingredients while making your snacks! Ask children if they’d like the same or different amounts of each ingredient. The MSU Extension has great ideas for nutritious snacks and information about healthy choices for your family. This is a link to more information about the MSU Extension.
Day 18: Practice organizing blocks by size! Try building a block tower with large blocks on the bottom and little blocks on top!
Day 19: Bring art outdoors! Offer dark and light paper, chalk and pastels, and let children create freely!
Frame a piece of your child’s artwork; have them help pick out which piece(s) gets framed
Day 20: Sharing family stories. Engaging and celebrating families is at the heart of supporting our youngest learners.
NAEYC applauds family members’ role as young children’s first and most important teachers. Share pictures and stories about your family with your child. Have a family breakfast, where children can help prepare and share breakfast with their family. Incorporate extended family- there are many studies that tout the benefits of grandparents and grandchildren interacting, or even children interacting with the elderly. It is a mutually beneficial interaction. This website talks about the benefits for Senior Citizens when telling their stories to others: “‘A grandfather will not tell a grandchild all of the nitty-gritty details. They tend to clean up the story,’ notes Elliott-Scheinberg. ‘On the flip side, it’s a wonderful experience for a child or grandchild to interview their elders, because it is hard for us to envision our parents and grandparents as children.’”
Day 21: Give your child a notebook and pencil to make a grocery list. They can make it with words, pictures, or both. Have them take their list with them when they go shopping and help cross off items as they are placed in the cart. Finding tasks your child can help with at the store helps to reduce meltdowns. Asking for their input for dinners, fruits, vegetables, and snacks before going to the store helps reduce the number of complaints when it is time to eat.
Depending on your child’s level, you may want to help them with a printable list they can circle pictures, checkboxes, or write a list. Here is a resource with several varieties of printable grocery lists.
Day 22: Start seeds growing indoors to plant outside in May, or have a container garden in your home. The process of planting seeds and watching them grow is fascinating for young children. There are lots of different ways to plant seeds indoors and outdoors for all kinds of outdoor spaces.
Day 23: Find a new favorite author with a trip to your library.
Day 24: Take a family bike ride! There are two bike trails in Alma: The Rail Trail that goes from Wright Park to Greenville, and the trail that goes from the Park and Ride on Lincoln Road by US 127 down to Ithaca, following US 127. There are also several places around town where you can ride from one part of town to another! Don’t have a bike? Take a walk!
Day 25: Go on a color hunt around the house: Name a color and go! This can be done outside, too! You would be surprised at all the colors you can find!
Day 26: Create a blanket fort. This is a childhood favorite! Use chairs, and other pieces of furniture, create tunnels and caves. Hang out and read a book or play a game. Here is a blog post that gives some tips on how to make your forts more durable or alluring.
Day 27: Go for ice cream! Have fun and create lasting memories with your child on a regular basis! You might even make your own ice cream, juice Popsicle, or other homemade frozen treat!
Day 28: Have your child make pictures and deliver to a local nursing home. They can also mail pictures to grandparents, friends, and relatives.
Day 29: Take a day trip to a children’s museum. Some local options:
Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum, Midland Center for the Arts, Dow Gardens, Impression 5, Mid-Michigan Children’s Museum. What is your favorite children’s museum to visit?
Day 30: Read your child’s favorite story and act it out as a family. Finding new ways to tell stories your child has read helps them to improve their literacy skills. Try: puppet show, drawing it out, acting it out, telling it from memory, using felt or magnet pieces to retell it, and more. If you need some ideas, this blog post has 20 story ideas.