In the midst of a global pandemic, one must find a glimmer of happiness wherever it may emerge. For me, it comes in the form of four specific words from my 9-year-old daughter, often uttered with colossal enthusiasm:
“LET’S PLAY 2-SQUARE!”
Play in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 3
At Home Activity: DIY Constellations
During all this social distancing, our worlds have gotten much smaller—our morning coffee, dinner dates, family outings, staff meetings, workouts, and children’s educations all take place in the same spot: our homes.
And as much as our lives have changed, so have our children’s lives, especially if they’re school-aged.
But what if we told you that, in the height of the Coronavirus quarantine, you can make your world seem as big as outer space?
Play in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 2
At Home Activity: Animal Tracks
Since the days of just sending our little ones outside to play with the neighbors are at a halt for now, today’s at home activity focuses on something you can do with your littles outside: search for animal tracks!
This guided activity lets you and your little ones tap into your Discovery Channel sensibilities. Exploring the mud (or dare we even mention it this late in the year, snow!) is a great way to pique your children’s curiosities about animals, nature, and biology. Plus, you might learn a few things along the way.
Play in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 1
This is a time of back-to-basics, focusing on the essentials of our families’ well-being: food, shelter, health, and security.
More than ever, parents and caregivers are seeking ways to best care for and engage their children, within the new context of sheltering-in-place, no school, and no community activities.
At Home Activity: Breathing in Memory
… the scent of smell, also known as the olfactory sense, is powerful. In fact, it’s the scent most attributed to memory formation—which is why a smell may trigger an intense, vivid memory, sometimes out of the blue.
Smell is also deeply connected to emotion—our brains form strong connections between particular scents and powerful emotions, which is why smelling something can feel so suddenly intense.
What does this have to do with your kids, or parenting, or play? Well, we’re bringing you an at home activity that is all about how you can explore this powerful (and often overlooked) sense with your kids in the comfort of your own home (while reinforcing and building literacy skills).
At Home Activity: Estimation Games
This time of uncertainty might be the perfect time to explore one of math’s most kid-friendly concepts: estimation.
Practicing estimation skills with your kids is a great way to infuse math learning and play. With activities like the one below, children will begin to understand spatial reasoning in terms of height, weight, and length, and they’ll also start sharpening their educated guessing skills.
At Home Activity: The Element of Surprise
Today we’re sharing an activity that is all about how you and your littles can take the most familiar objects around you and turn them into something brand new. And since we’re all about quality play at Chicago Children’s Museum (that’s also a blast)—today’s activity also allows your kids to flex their imagination and literacy skills at the same time.
The Power of Pretend Play: More Than Just Make Believe
Another thing we keep hearing over and over again during the COVID-19 quarantine:
Fake it until you make it.
In trying times, experts encourage us to slap a smile on our face and pretend that things are easier than they are—and sometimes, we might even start believing it.
Lucky for parents and caregivers—our kids are natural pretenders.
Social Distancing, COVID-19, Shelter in Place: How Do We Explain it All to Our Kids?
We keep hearing it and thinking it over and over again: these are unprecedented times—and they are. But despite the quiet air of social distancing across our neighborhoods and towns, there’s also quite a bit of noise—24-hour news channels, Twitter feeds, daily press conferences, and more.
We’re here to summarize some of that noise for you! And to round-up some quality links that we know you can trust.