Day of Play Newsletter

Transcription

1 Day of Play Newsletter This newsletter is brought to you by: The Hanover Insurance Group Foundation The Worcester Family Partnership and Edward Street Child Services See highlights on the Day of Play website! September 2015 Newsletter! Here you will find activities in each of the 6 important types of play: reading play, construction play, STEM play, creative arts play, active play and music & dance play that will allow you to continue the learning fun at home! To find out more about the benefits of play, visit the Day of Play website! Reading Play 1. Letter Pizza: Your child will enjoy this letter recognition craft! You'll need a round piece of cardboard (or paper), construction paper in red, green, and beige, scissors, glue, paint, a paint brush and a marker. First, cut 26 small circles out of the red construction paper (these are your pepperoni slices). Help your child write all the letters of the alphabet on the circles with one letter on each circle. Next, have your child paint the beige crust on the pizza (the big cardboard circle). Cut out some toppings such as green peppers and have your child glue them on. Then glue on your pepperoni. Spread glue on the whole center of the pizza and have your child stick the pepperoni slices on one at a time. Ask your child what letter they're putting on from time to time and encourage them to put all the letters on facing the same direction. Pretty soon, the

2 pizza will be done! 2. Word Jenga: Now, you can add word practice to the many reasons why Jenga is such a great game! You'll need a Jenga game (look out for cheap ones at yard sales and thrift stores if you don't have one) and a permanent marker. Write a basic word on both ends of every Jenga block (for example: a, and, in, no, dog, cat, book, run...). Then, play Jenga according to the usual rules (Build a tower 3 blocks wide using all your blocks. Each layer's 3 blocks should be placed perpendicularly to the blocks directly below them. Then, everyone takes turns pulling out a block and adding it to the top of the tower, continuing the pattern without making the whole tower fall over). However, one thing is different from the usual rules: before you pull out a block, you must read one of the words on it. You can even record these words on a sheet if you'd like to get some writing practice in. 3. Letter of the Week: This is a great long-term letter project. The idea is to pick a letter each week and then cut it out of paper, glue it onto another sheet of paper and have your child decorate that paper with something that starts with that letter. You can hang the letters up afterwards to build towards a whole alphabet wall. But even if you don't finish the entire alphabet, this activity will still be great letter practice! Try making the letter F, featuring feathers. You'll need a big letter cutout glued onto a sheet of paper of a different color, glue, and some colorful feathers. Then, have your child decorate the letter by gluing some feathers on. It's as simple as that. Other letter suggestions: Zebra stripes for the letter Z, glitter for the letter G, dry pasta for the letter P...and if no material comes to mind for a certain letter, you can just draw a noun that starts with that letter (such as an x-ray for the letter X). Have fun! Construction Play 1. Toilet Paper Roll and Box Castle: Recycle some toilet paper rolls and small cardboard boxes in a couple of different sizes. These will eventually be used to build a castle, so feel free to paint them to spice them up. Also, cut the top of the toilet paper rolls in a square zig zag pattern to resemble the way castles are often shaped at the top. Once this is done, your child can use their imagination to arrange and stack the boxes and place the rolls on top of them to create a castle. The

3 more materials you have, the better! 2. Styrofoam Sculptures: This easy and inexpensive activity will help you keep styrofoam packaging out of the trash! In addition to any type of styrofoam broken up into kid-friendly pieces, you'll need some bamboo skewers. Lay out both materials in front of your child and let them start building a sculpture. They can use the skewers to connect the pieces of styrofoam (toothpicks work too, for smaller pieces). Have fun building together! 3. Grape and Toothpick Sculptures: If your child enjoys sculpture building, pick up some grapes and toothpicks next time you're at the grocery store to try this edible take on construction play! Grapes are sturdy, yet easy to pierce with toothpicks, so have your child build towers or 3-D shapes with them, such as squares or triangles. They could design a 1-D pattern along the table. The best thing is that grapes make a healthy snack, so once your child decides to dismantle the structures, they grapes won't go to waste because you can snack on them or save them for later! STEM Play (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) 1. Air Pressure Experiment: Does your child ever wonder why airplanes fly? This simple experiment will provide some clarification. All you need is an empty plastic bottle and a small ball of rolled up paper. The ball of paper should be small enough to easily fit inside the mouth of the bottle. To get started, place your bottle so that its mouth is right near the edge of the table. Next, place the ball of paper inside the mouth of the bottle. Now, try to blow the ball into the bottle. You'll discover that it will bounce back at you instead! This happens for the same reason that airplanes are able to fly. The air you blow toward the mouth of the bottle deflects around to the sides of the bottle, so the air pressure in front of the bottle becomes lower than the pressure behind it. Because of this pressure difference the paper flies out. The way that airplane wings are shaped makes air travel more quickly over the top of them than under them. Thus, the pressure is lower above than below, so the wings are lifted upward towards the lower pressure air. Planes fly higher the faster they move. 2. Skittles Experiment: Discover color mixing with this neat science activity. You'll need a bowl, a pitcher of water and

4 some skittles. You'll also need a stable table or floor. First, pour a little bit of water into the bowl. You only need enough to cover the skittles you'll put in next. Select at least 3 skittles of different colors and add them to the bowl, making sure that they are spaced out well and that the S is facing up. Observe what happens to the colors (they'll spread out and blend together and you'll see the S float to the top because it is less dense than the water. However, they won't truly mix and form one uniform color unless you move and shake the bowl during this process). If the colors look cool, have your child draw a picture of them! 3. Celery Experiment: Celery leaves will change color in this cool experiment. You'll just need some celery with the leaves still on, 5 or so medium-sized jars, food coloring, and water. Fill each jar half or 2/3 of the way with water and make each a different color using the food coloring. You can mix colors, too (for example, mixing red and yellow to make orange). Add a stick of celery to each jar and let it sit overnight. Ask your child if they think anything will happen. The celery will go through a water absorption process called transpiration. It contains xylem, which absorbs water, so the colored water moves through the celery. Notice that the celery sticks with more leaves absorb more water than the ones with less leaves. Enjoy your celery rainbow! Creative Arts Play 1. Stained Glass Apple Craft: Help your child create this pretty back-to-school decoration that you can hang in your window. You'll need some wax paper, crayons, a manual pencil sharpener with a larger hole, an iron, an ironing board, scrap paper, construction paper, scissors and any kind of glue. First, turn on your iron to medium heat with no steam. Next, tear a piece of wax paper that's more or less square in shape and fold this piece in half. Unfold it and decide what color you want the apple to be (red, yellow, green, a combination of colors, etc) and take the paper off of some of those crayons. "Sharpen" them and put the shavings onto the wax paper. You can also prepare some green and/or brown if you want a stem and/or leaf. Keep the shavings on one half of the paper. Once you have a few piles of shavings, refold the paper to cover the shavings, making sure that they are no closer than a half-inch to the edge. Keep the stem/leaf color next to (but separate

5 from) the apple color. Carefully place the wax paper with the shavings onto your ironing board and put a piece of scrap paper over it. Iron it for 10 seconds or so - long enough for the wax to melt, and checking it every few seconds to make sure nothing burns (do not have your child help with this step). Then, let it cool. Stack two pieces of construction paper and fold them in half, but don't crease much. Draw half of an apple shape on the paper, so that the stem is lined up parallel with the crease. You can do this for your child if needed, but it could be as easy as a semicircle with a stem and if you add a leaf, you can cut it out on one side only. Cut out your apple and you'll end up with two whole apples. Now, put glue around one of the pieces of construction paper that has the apple missing in the center. Put your wax paper and melted crayon onto the middle of the page. Also put glue on the second piece of paper and line it up over the top so that the "stained glass" is sandwiched between the papers. Now you're ready to display your fall artwork! 2. Leaf Creatures: One of the pleasures of living in New England is the beautiful fall foliage. Why not take advantage of this, get outdoors and collect some fallen leaves on a nature walk with your child? Then, create these cool creatures together. First, collect your leaves. It's always fun to get a variety of colors from different types of trees if you can. Besides leaves, you'll need thick Popsicle sticks, googly eyes and a hot glue gun and/or Elmer's glue. Take out your leaves and attach your googly eyes to them with the Elmer's glue. Then glue the Popsicle stick onto the back with the hot glue. That's it! You can make as many as your child wants. It's lots of fun to make a little family of leaf creatures! 3. Leaf Crown: Here's another great leaf craft! Make a crown for your child with cute leaf ears. You'll just need a small assortment of fresh leaves, a paper bag (8'' x 13.5'' suggested), tape, scissors, and black and white markers or crayons. Once you've collected your leaves outside you'll be ready to begin! Cut the paper bag into three strips (about 3-4'' x 28'') and fit a strip to your child's head. You can do this by cutting the band open, wrapping it around your child's head and then taping it back together so that is sits comfortably on their head. Fit all three strips if you'd like to make multiple crowns. Now, draw an animal face onto the strip (eyes, nose, whiskers or a beak, etc) and glue two similar leaves above the face to represent ears. Alternatively, glue leaves onto the crown one by one for a full leaf crown or figure out a pattern or cool design. You can also make wristbands with smaller strips. Just make sure they're big enough to still be able to slip over your child's hand!

6 Active Play 1. Trash Can Review Game: This nifty game will provide your child with the chance to not only do some active play, but also some reading play! All you need is a trash can, paper (scrap is fine) and a marker. Rip your paper into little rectangles and write one letter on each rectangle. Your child can help with this! Then, lay them out on the floor and put out an empty trash can. Ask your child to find a certain letter. To make it more challenging, include both uppercase and lowercase letters and specify which kind you're looking for. After your child finds the letter, they can crush it into a ball and throw it in the trash can. Then continue with the other letters! Once you've finished, if you want to play again, just empty the trash can and smooth the paper out. You can also play this game with words or numbers. 2. Twist and Shout: This partner game is best played between two siblings or friends who are similar in size. All you need is a ball. Have both kids stand back to back and give the ball to one of them. Their goal is to twist and pass the ball between them. Have them practice a little. Once they get the hang of it, time them to see how many times they can pass the ball back and forth without breaking contact in a set amount of time. They can also just count themselves and keep going until they mess up! 3. Up and Over: This is another fantastic partner game for two kids. Grab a ball and and you'll have the kids moving and having fun in no time! Have the kids stand back to back and give them the ball. The object of the game is to pass it over their heads or between their legs while keeping count of how many times in a row the ball is passed without them dropping it. Music & Dance Play 1. Pin Strummers: Try this craft to make a neat homemade instrument! You'll need some bobby pins in various sizes, if possible. You'll also need some empty tins, jars, plastic bottles or even a piece of Styrofoam. Check your recycling bin! Now, widen about 5 bobby pins and tape them onto your item with the open end of the bobby pin close to the edge (rather than to the center) of the item. Then you can start strumming your

7 strummer by pushing a pin's end down and letting it pop back up. Every strummer is different depending on factors such as the material you used, how much you stretched you pins, and where you placed them. Experiment with these factors! What does it sound like when the pin is stretched a lot, compared to when it is barely stretched at all? Encourage your child to keep experimenting and trying new things! 2. Cardboard Guitar: Your curious little musician will love having their very own guitar that you can make together at home! You'll need an old cereal or tissue box, a paper towel roll, rubber bands, glue (hot glue is best), thin Popsicle sticks, and painting supplies (optional). Paint the box and paper towel roll, if you'd like. Then, after everything has dried, cut a circle out of the middle of the box. Next, glue four sticks, one on top of the other, onto the box between one of the short sides of the box and the hole. The sticks should be parallel to the short sides. Now, glue two of the sticks an inch apart onto the paper towel roll close to one end, perpendicular to the roll. After the sticks have dried, stretch about 5 rubber bands around the box the long way. They should go over both the 4 sticks and the hole. Then, attach the paper towel roll to the box onto the short side that doesn't have the sticks. It works well to make a few small cuts of equal length into the side of the roll that you're going to be gluing. Then bend these out and put a generous amount of glue on them before pressing the roll onto the box. Once it's dry, you can start plucking or strumming your guitar! Rock out! 3. Jello: Play this game with a group of children who enjoy singing and dancing! Have everyone hold hands and form a circle. Choose one child to go in the middle and be the jello. This child gets to dance and move and wobble while the rest of the group sings this little song to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell": Jello in the bowl, jello in the bowl, weeble, wobble, weeble, wobble, jello in the bowl! Then, the jello selects a new person to be in the middle and the group sings the song again! Created by Lillian Daley Edward Street Child Services