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! October 2016 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. Feed the Alphabet Monster: The next best thing to feeding yourself is feeding the Alphabet Monster! You will need paper, marker, an empty box and scissors. Start by making the monster some ABC food. Trace circles in the paper and write the letters of the alphabet on them. Next grab the empty box to make your monster. Cut out a little opening for them mouth (big enough to fit the circular letters you already made) and then decorate the monster in any way you want. Finally, spread all of the letters out, call them out to your child and let them feed the Alphabet Monster! 2. Leaf Letter Toss: Bring some fall fun indoors! You will need colored paper, a marker and scissors. Start by drawing leaves onto the colored paper. Then help your child cut out the leaves and write the letters of the alphabet. Draw a tree trunk and label the branches with the letters of the alphabet. You can turn this into a game in two ways. You can hide the leaves around the house and then hunt or them or you can throw them into the air and as you catch one put it onto the tree! 3. Sight Word Ghost Zap: Zap those sight word ghosts! Start by drawing ghosts on the sidewalk or driveway using
chalk. Let your child help design and draw the ghosts. Once they have been drawn, put a sight word inside or around each ghost. The next step is to help scare those ghosts away! Use a cup of water or squirt gun to help with this! Call out a word for your child to find and once they have found it, spray the ghost. Keep playing until you run out of space to draw new ghosts! Book Suggestion: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak Construction Play 1. Homemade Leaf Blower: Enjoy a creative activity and help your child create models of their family members! Start by collecting as many toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls as you can. Let your child paint or color the toilet paper rolls and make them look like each family member. Once they are done, add the finishing touches like eyes and hair. If you are feeling adventurous use string to make hair or cut out paper to make clothes for each doll. 2. The Itsy Bitsy Spider: Make your own Itsy Bitsy Spider! You will need newspaper or magazines and yarn. Start out by tearing individual pages out of the newspaper or magazine and then roll them tightly. It works best to start at one corner and roll to the other. If you need to, put a piece of tape down to hold everything in place. Then crisscross the rolls of paper and tie one end of the string around the center. Once the string has been tied, wrap the rest of the string around the spider. Sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider while you all play with your new craft! 3. Junk Art Robot: Build your own robot out of recyclable materials! Go through your recycling bin and pull out things like toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, plastic bottles and their lids and bubble wrap. You can also use things like paper plates, Popsicle sticks and tin foil. Once you and your child have found all of the materials, start building your robot! Let your child come up with and draw a sketch of what they think the robot will look like and then build it! Give your robot a name and let your child's imagination take over from there! Book Suggestion: Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall STEM Play (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Math) 1. Halloween Balloon Ghosts: This is a super fun, sciencebased Halloween activity! All you need is a water bottle, balloon, marker, vinegar and baking soda! Let your child draw a ghost face on the balloon and fill the balloon with about a tablespoon of baking soda. Then fill the water bottle with half a cup of vinegar. Attach the balloon to the top of the water bottle, lift the balloon so the baking soda falls into the water bottle and watch the magic happen! These two household items create carbon dioxide when they mix and that is what inflates the balloon! 2. Roasting Pumpkin Seeds: Take your left over pumpkin seeds and make a tasty treat! All you need for this activity is butter, salt and raw pumpkin seeds. Start by preheating your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Next toss the seeds in a bowl with the melted butter and salt. Then spread the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet or tinfoil and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown. Once you the seeds are cooked and have cooled, serve them as a snack. You can have your child practice counting while you do this activity! 3. Candy Corn Experiment: Make your own disappearing pumpkin experiment! You will need milk, water, oil, vinegar and candy pumpkins or candy corn. Start by filling four cups (preferably glass or see through) with the same amount of each required liquid. Have your child make some predictions about what is going to happen in each of the glasses. Then place a candy corn or candy pumpkin in each glass or bowl. Watch what happens and talk about why the candy might be dissolving. Try shaking the glasses or changing the temperature of the liquid in the glass and see what happens! When you are done, take the candy out of the glasses and make more observations. Book Suggestion: 5 Little Ghosts by Patricia Hegarty and Julia Wolf Creative Arts Play 1. Painting with Apples: Grab some apples from your house or local grocery store and get to work learning about them! Try some activities with them like balancing them on your head, stacking them like blocks or eating them as a snack. Another fun activity would be to cut the apple in half and pain with it. Make imprints with the apple or slide it across the paper and see what kind of patterns they make! 2. Leaf Tracing: Bring some fall fun indoors with this activity! Go outside and collect leaves of all different sizes and textures. When you are done, bring them inside and get out
the crayons. Put the leaves down on the table and cover them with a piece of paper. Rub the crayon all over the paper covered leaf and see what happens! Make some guesses about what will happen before you start! 3. Shake the Box! Shake, shake, shake the box and add a new twist to painting! Start by cutting shapes out of any color paper you want. Next find an old cardboard box from around your house and put a few of the shapes inside. You will also need old Easter eggs or bouncy balls to do this project. Once the shapes are inside of the box, put a few drops of different colored paint in. Seal the box with some tape and start shaking! Once your child is done shaking, open the box and look at the shapes that you put inside. Take the shapes out, put new ones in and start shaking again! Book Suggestion: How Do Apples Grow? by Betsey Maestro Active Play 1. Scavenger Hunt: Let your little adventurer become a sneaky spy for the day! Your spy is on a mission to get from the beginning to the end without knocking down the tape and picking up as many items as you can! You will need some string or tape and small trinkets like pompoms or little toys. Give your child a bag so they can collect the items. Sting the tape or string back and forth at different heights across the hallway. Then add in the toy or pompoms and try to stick some onto the tape if you can. Have your child crawl or walk their way through the tape and see how many items they can find! 2. Book Character Charades: Practice your acting skills with a fun game of charades! Start by making a list of book characters or book titles and cut each one out. Once you have done this, fold them in half and put them in a cup or bowl to draw from. Split your group in half and then decide which team is going to go first. Have the first player pick a word from the hat and act it out without making any noise. The team guessing gets one minute to try and guess the word. If they do not guess correctly, the other team gets a chance to guess the correct charade and earn one point. The game continues like this until you run out of words! 3. Capture the Ghost: Have an adventure while pretending to be a ghost! The goal of this game is to try and rescue your ghost friend from the other team! Find a big area outside or inside and split your group up into two teams. Come up with a place that is going to be the centerline and then each team picks a side. Each team must also designate a spot for the jail and a hiding place for their ghost. Once each team has hidden their ghost, start the game! You have to run to the other
teams side and try to rescue the ghost without getting tagged. If you get tagged, you have to go to jail! Once one team rescues their ghost from the other side they win! Book Suggestion: I Spy by Jean Marzollo Music & Dance Play 1. Monster Freeze Dance: Dance your way into the holiday mood with this fun game! Find a few fun songs like the Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett and get ready to dance. When the music start, dance around like a zombie, monster or ghost and when it stops, freeze like your character! When the music restarts, pick another character and dance like them! Have lots of fun and be creative! 2. Washboard Music: Sing a song while you decorate a pumpkin! You will need a piece of orange paper for the pumpkin and then black paper for the facial features. Pumpkin, pumpkin, orange pumpkin Pumpkin, pumpkin, orange pumpkin Pumpkin, pumpkin, orange pumpkin Hi Ho! Autumn is here! Give him eyes like 2 triangles, Give him a nose that's round like a circle Give him a mouth to make him smile! Pumpkin, pumpkin, orange pumpkin! 3. The Itsy Bitsy Spider: Pair this song with the fun arts activity listed above! The itsy-bitsy spider Climbed up the waterspout! Down came the rain And washed the spider out Out came the sun And dried up all the rain And the itsy-bitsy spider Climbed up the spout again! Book Suggestion: Frank Was the Monster Who Wanted to Dance by Keith Graves Created by Katy Watson
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