Welcome to the newest edition of your weekly Timeout, featuring the best in self-improvement and escapism from across the internet.
Feeling hungry? This week’s Timeout has you covered.
At Home Activity: Bump-It-Up Paint
With today’s at home activity, you can combine a few easy-to-find ingredients to make your own textured paint. Your little ones will satisfy their inner chemist by creating their own paints, then use those paints to create three-dimensional works of art.
It’s an easy, fun, win-win art activity for your whole family.
Your Weekly Timeout: Mindfulness
At Home Activity: Whirl Its AKA Thaumatropes
What Sparks Interest in Children?
Chicago Children's Museum is the perfect place to watch interest spark in our littles. We design all of our spaces to encourage and facilitate interest in powerful, child-led ways.
We asked Liz Rosenberg, Lead Arts Educator at Chicago Children’s Museum, for some tips on how we can practice igniting our little ones’ sparks at home.
At Home Activity: Cardboard Beads
At Home Activity: Build a Ramp
At Home Activity: Shadow Play
At Home Activity: Cardboard Tubes
Toilet paper isn’t as hot a commodity as it was a few weeks ago, but we’ve got one more reason to think twice about this otherwise boring item: the empty cardboard rolls.
Today’s at home activity focuses on another way to upcycle those rolls into a STEM focused, spatial reasoning exercise for your little ones.
So save whatever cardboard rolls you’ve got and let your kids discover their inner architect.
Your Weekly Timeout: Laughter
At Home Activity: Puppet Parade
Let’s throw a parade in our honor. We deserve it, don’t we? The homeschooling, the working from home, the socially distant Zoom birthday parties, and constant hand washing—we are all something to celebrate.
Trouble is, who do we celebrate with?
Today’s at home activity is all about making your own crowd. Gather some puppets, stuffies, and toys— and throw yourselves a parade.
At Home Activity: Marionette Play
By taking a familiar toy or stuffy (one with limbs that move easily) and turning it into a marionette, your little ones will have a whole new way to play. They’ll work on their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, plus their sense of self expression and creativity will come alive.
So grab a flexible toy and some string and let your littles be the puppeteers.
At Home Activity: Cereal Box Guitars
At Home Activity: Mandala Drawing
Parents and Caregivers: You're in Timeout
In these times of added stress and uncertainty, one of the most important tricks in the Parenting Playbook is the timeout.
No, no, no. Not that kind of timeout.
We’re talking about a mental timeout to recharge your personal batteries and tend to yourself. Plus, who wouldn’t mind a little extra quiet time in this all family, all day era?
Read the weekly Timeout, a new feature of Chicago Children’s Museum’s Parenting Playbook, for the best in self-improvement and escapism from across the internet.
Celebrate International Family Equality Day Online!
Since 2012, Chicago Children’s Museum has recognized International Family Equality Day (IFED), a day held annually on the first Sunday in May to celebrate and recognize the diversity of LGBTQ families around the world.
Usually, we’d pack our Great Hall with activities and resources, tie pride rainbow ribbons along our staircase, and host performances to celebrate and honor the diversity of the families that come to Chicago Children’s Museum.
This year, we can’t make that happen. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t celebrate.
At Home Activity: Tear It Up
Look at your little one’s hands. Yes—they're adorable (and maybe a little sticky), but did you also know that they’re working really, really hard?
That’s because our hands grow the most when we’re between ages 0 and 5 years old. And as a result, our little one’s hands do a lot of work to get stronger, more flexible, and more adept at skills we eventually need... like using scissors.
Today’s at home activity video is all about enhancing those skills.
At Home Activity: Secret Puzzle Game
Secret Puzzle Game is a simple, outside-the-box way of sitting with the words, feelings, and thoughts we’re experiencing during this wild time. Think of a word or image, keep it secret, draw it on the back of a cereal box that you’ll cut up to make your own puzzle. Then, hide the pieces around the room and hunt for the rest of your family’s pieces.
At Home Activity: Alphabet Scavenger Hunt
Today’s at home activity lets your children show off their literacy skills by finding items beginning with every letter of the alphabet. So explain the rules, maybe provide an example, and let them explore your space to find each object.
And while they do, take a minute to sip some coffee, look out the window, or even just stare at the wall for a little bit.