Beginning Hammering

FOR AGES: 3- 7 years

Hammering nails into wood is a fun activity. Make it easy and safe for young fingers by using stryofoam instead of wood.

BEGINNING HAMMERING

MATERIALS:
Block of styrofoam (such as the ones that come in boxes for shipping computers, printers, etc.)
Small hammer (tack hammers work well) or thick stick
Nails or golf tees

DIRECTIONS:
Show your youngster how to hammer nails or golf tees into a syrofoam block. They hammer in easily making each attempt a satisfying success.

If you want to give them a more advanced experience, use screws and a screwdriver instead.

Ice Cube Distraction

FOR AGES: 3-10 MONTHS

Babies can get fussy just when you are busy making dinner. It’s probably the smells that make them hungry. Distract them with an ice cube. They have the fun of trying to catch it as it skitters. You get to cook without interruptions. . Everyone is happy!

ICE CUBE ON A TRAY

MATERIALS:
Ice cubes
Tray
Food coloring (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Place a large ice cube on your child’s high chair tray or table for him to chase around. Make them out of plain or colored water.

When it gets too small and might be swallowed, replace it with a large one before you take the small one away.

Other fun, but messy, things to splash and squiggle are soy sauce, mild mustard, ketchup, whip cream or meringue.

Jell-O blocks are fun to touch and to watch them shimmy and shake.

Five Good Moments

FOR AGES: TEENS

Life contains many kinds of moments. Teens can get stuck on a negative moment and enlarge its significance. This game shows children that good moments are always part of the mix if one looks for them.

FIVE GOOD MOMENTS

MATERIALS:
None

DIRECTIONS:
Suggest to your Teen:
"Pay attention throughout the day for five moments that make you feel good. The moment can be an interaction with someone or something lovely that you thought or saw or heard.. What it is doesn’t matter. What matters is that for at least a moment it made you feel good.

I’ll do the same and when we get together at the end of the day, we’ll share our five good things that happened."

The Knocking Game

AGES: ALL AGES

Listening to and identifying the different sounds objects make when you knock on them is a game that can be played at any time. When you want to change the focus of fussing children, try saying: "Hey, let’s play a game. Close your eyes and see if you can tell what I’m knocking on. No cheating!"

THE KNOCKING GAME

MATERIALS:
Common objects found around the house

DIRECTIONS:
Ask your player to close her eyes and turn her back to you. Then see if she can guess the object you are knocking on with your fist (or a spoon). Start with easy things such as a table and a window, and work towards sounds that are harder to identify, such as knocking on a book or lamp.

Take turns being the identifier and the "knocker".

Nature Bracelets

For Ages 1-5
You can start your little one’s exploration and appreciation of nature with this game of making a masking tape naturre bracelet. They’ll notice all the lovely color and shape variations there are in petal and leaf and adorn their wirsts with beauty.

NATURE BRACELETS

Materials:
Masking tape
Leaves and flower petals

Directions:
Wrap a piece of masking tape around your child's wrist, sticky side up, and then go exploring to find wonderful leaves, beautiful flower petals and other interesting things to attach to the bracelet.

Before bedtime, snip the bracelet off and attach it next to his bed or somewhere in view so he can admire his work and remember his fun time.

I love you because...

FOR AGES: 1-7 years
This is the kind of game that would make a lovely bedtime ritual or a sweet moment during a car ride or a bath. It’s hard to get tired of hearing in just what ways one is wonderful.

I LOVE YOU BECAUSE

MATERIALS:
None

DIRECTIONS:
Say these words or something similar to the child of your heart:
"Do you know why I love you? I love you because_______" Fill in the blank with anything about the child that you especially appreciate. In this game you can be general such as "You’re a kind person" or specific such as "You shared your chocolate ice cream with your little brother today" or "You hugged your classmate when you saw that she was upset".

It’s nice to end the ritual by saying:
"I love you because you are _______(fill in with child’s name)."
The ending lets them also know that just being them is enough to merit love.

Tube Game

For Ages: Babies

Here’s a funway to teach babies that things out of sight still exist. This knowledge helps her not worry when you’re not in view.

Tube Game

Materials:
Mailing tube or the tube from a paper towel roll.

Directions:
Place a small object like a toy car in one end and tilt it so it reappears on the other end. Let baby experiment with putting the car and other objects in the tube, tilting it and making it reappear.

Tape two tubes together for added suspense. When will it reappear?

Postcard Diaries

For Ages: 7-15 years
Next time you take a trip with your older child, buy her postcards that she can use to make a memorable diary.

Postcard Diaries

Materials:
Postcards
Pen
Ribbon

Directions:
Let your child select a few postcards each day or at each destination. As she writes entries on the back of each postcard, she is making a diary for that period of her life.

She can make a hole in one corner of each postcard and string them together with a ribbon or make her own puzzles (and keep her words very private) by cutting up a postcard into smaller pieces that she can put together later.

My Special Things

FOR AGES: TEENS

Teen-agers often have special objects that mean a lot to them. Here is an opportunity to make those objects immortal by making a book.

MY SPECIAL THINGS

MATERIALS:
Pen and paper or computer and word processor
Camera (optional)
Scrapbook

DIRECTIONS:
Suggest to your budding writer that she take photographs or draw pictures of the objects in her life that have meaning to her and paste them in a scrapbook. Under each picture, she could write a story about how that object came into her life and what it means to her.

Eye Dropper Fun

FOR AGES :3-5 YEARS
It takes a moment or so to learn how to make an eye dropper work and then the fun can begin.

EYE DROPPER FUN

MATERIALS:
Eye dropper
Two small containers
Water
Food coloring (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Teach your child how to squeeze the top of the eydropper, put it in water, release the squeeze and watch the dropper fill with water.

Let her experiment with removing the water from one container and putting it, drop by drop, into another container.
Add food coloring to the water if you’d like.

For silly fun, use the eyedroppers to squirt each other with water!

Yarn Pix

FOR AGES:1-7
If you are going on a long car or plane ride, here is a game you might want to tuck into a plastic bag and take along.

INSTANT YARN PICTURE

MATERIALS:
Piece of coarse sandpaper
Bits of colored yarn

DIRECTIONS:
Cut pieces of different color yarn in various lengths and show your child how the yarn sticks to the sandpaper and then can be pulled off.

Make an abstract design together taking turns laying down a piece until it feels complete. Make another picture of something real such as a house or the sun . First, she puts down a piece of yarn and then, inspired by that placement, you add your piece next to hers. She then adds another piece to the growing abstract design and you both continue on until all the yarn is used up or the design feels complete.

Take all the yarn off and do it again together. Maybe, this time doing a recognizable picture like a house or sun. Or let her experiment on her own.

No sandpaper and yarn handy? You can play a similar version of this game using cooked spaghetti and a cloth place mat!

Enchantment of Water

FOR AGES: TODDLERS

Although it may be simple, a sponge and a bowl of water can keep a toddler fascinated for a long time.

THE ENCHANTMENT OF WATER

MATERIALS:
Dishpan and water
optional objects:
clean dry sponges
plastic bottles
corks and straws
tennis ball
ice cubes

DIRECTIONS:
Cut the sponges into pieces that are too big to swallow.

Put a shallow amount of water in the pan and toss the sponges in.. Show your child how to soak up the water with the sponge and then squeeze it out.

Cut a plastic bottle in half to make a funnel and a cup. (Tape the edges if needed)

Put a tennis ball in the water to chase around as it moves freely in the dishpan.

Add corks to the water and blow them around with a straw.

Add ice cubes for another interesting variation.

Stone Painting

FOR: ALL AGES
Painting lines on a rock with water can make anything done look like elegant Japanese calligraphy.

STONE PAINTING

MATERIALS:
Smooth flat rocks
Paintbrush
Container with water

DIRECTIONS:
Experiment with making designs on a rock. Noone has to worry about making a "mistake" because when it dries it disappears! Have several rocks handy so a variety of designs can be tried.

Deck of Cards

FOR AGES: 2-5 years

Don’t underestimate the fascination of a deck of cards to a child just getting interested in recognizing numbers and sorting colors and shapes

Deck of Cards

MATERIALS:
Deck of cards.

DIRECTIONS:
Bring out a deck of cards and just show your child the different aspects of the cards. Name the suits, and point out how the written numbers correspond with the actual amount of objects. "5 of hearts is suppose to have 5 hearts on it--let’s count and see if that’s true 1-2-3-4-5. It is true!"

Offer to sort the cards with him according to suit or color or put them in order from ace to king..

If he’s ready, play some simple card games such as "War". Each player gets an equal part of the deck. Then, one by one, each person shows their top card . The one with the highest card wins that hand!

Batting Practice

For ages 3-7 years
Here’s a simple activity that can keep a child amused for long periods while increasing her focusing skills and eye-hand coordination

Batting Practice

Materials:
Ball or balloon
Rope
Pantyhose or net bag (optional)
Rolled up newspaper or bat

Directions:
Hang a ball or balloon from a low tree branch so that it's at the right height for your child to hit with a bat. A ball can be put inside a torn pair of pantyhose or net bag and hung.

Use a rolled up newspaper or stick for a bat and let your child whack away!

Back Writing

For ages 5-12 years
Writing invisible letters on a child’s back a fun way to write a secret message.

Back Writing

Materials:
Paper & Pencil

Directions:
One person sits with his back to another and a pad of paper and pencil in front of him.

The other person, using his finger, "draws" a letter on the person’s back. At the same time, that person draws on the paper what he thinks is being drawn on his back.

Keep writing letter by letter until a whole message is given. The message could be a clue to where a treat is hidden! Take turns so both the writer and the person written on get to experience what it feels like. Have an older child play this game with a younger sibling as a fun way to help him learn his letters.

Shadow Games

For ages 2-15
Shadows make instant fun. The next time you are outside with your darling child when the sun is low in the horizon, have good fun romping with these games.

Shadow Games

Materials:
None but a time of the day when your bodies cast a shadow on the ground

Directions:
Don’t step on my shadow:
Telling your child not to do something that she knows it’s really okay to do makes this game silly fun. You say, "Don’t step on my shadow" and keep scurrying away as she tries to put a foot on your shadow. Take turns with this one seeing if you can step on her shadow while she moves away and tries to prevent your stepping on her shadow.

Being a Radio

For ages 3-7

Here is a game to capture your child's attention if you are stuck waiting in a car and want some thing silly and fun to do.

Being a Radio

Materials:
Car radio and a fun mood

Directions:
When the motor is off so that the radio doesn’t work, pretend to be different stations. When she presses a button, you sing a different song, give the weather, say the news, etc.

When your child turns the knob up, your voice gets louder. When she turns it down, it gets softer.

Take turns being the radio and being the knob turner. You can play this at home with a radio that is not plugged in and turn it into a guessing game. Take turns pretending to turn on the radio and humming a tune and see if the others can guess the song.

Catch a falling scarf

FOR AGES 1-3
Ball playing can be intimidating to a child just learning to coordinate his movements. It isn’t so much the throwing of the ball, as the trying to catch and missing that can undermine a small one’s growing confidence.

Scarf catching is a great way to start feeling competent. A scarf moves so much slower than a ball that it gives wiggle room for learning.

CATCH A FALLING SCARF

MATERIALS:
Scarf (scarves if there more than one player or paper towels if no scarves are handy)
Balloon (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Throw the scarf up in the air and have your child or children catch it out of the air as it floats down. Let him experiment tossing and catching on his own and then try tossing the scarf back and forth between you.

Encourage your child to try different ways of catching. Sometimes let the scarf fall gently down into his waiting hands. Other times have him try to snatch it out of the air or jump up to get it while it is still overhead.

For a game finale, to change the pace and speed up the action, blow up a balloon, hold it up for a moment to give your child(ren) time to get ready and then let it go. As the balloon whizzes around the room, try to catch it!

Plenty Peanut Hunt

FOR AGES 1-9
Easter hunts can be such fun if there are plenty of eggs so everyone finds a lot. It’s not fun to have "egg envy" looking at someone else’s brimming over basket.

That’s why in this fun hunt game, competition is eliminated as there are plenty of peanuts to find and eat! And no-one has to wait until Easter to play.

PLENTY PEANUT HUNT

MATERIALS:
Plenty of roasted peanuts in the shell
baskets or bags

DIRECTIONS:
Hide peanuts all over inside and out. Put some in obvious places such as right out on the ground or carpet, and hide some away in sneakier places for the older hunters. The goal is for everyone to find lots of nuts and share them at the end, if they want.

If you don’t have peanuts handy for a spontaneous hunting game, use whatever you do have plenty of. It could hard wrapped candies, poker chips, marbles, plastic spoons or anything else that is safe for your child to find and won’t be harmed by the weather or tramping feet.

This game can be played for no other reason other than fun or it could be a party game with prizes. Some peanuts can be marked with a red dot and those who fine the red dot ones get a prize or the person who finds the most wins..

For a party, instead of peanuts, you might want to hide the party favors and make finding them a game.

Toe Stepping

Marianas Variety Saipan
Run Date: July 13, 2007

FOR ALL AGES
Here’s a fun and silly game that requires concentration and quick movement. Try it sometime at a birthday party gathering, when you want to redirect excess energy, or when the kids are bored and want something quick and new to do.

TOE STEPPING

MATERIALS:
None but fancy footwork

DIRECTIONS:
Two people, both barefoot or in stocking feet, face each other and hold hands. Each person tries to step on the others toes while at the same time keep their toes from being stepped on.

You might remind the players to step lightly on each other’s toes so that others will do the same to you. In other words, follow this game’s Golden Rule: Step on others as you would want to be stepped on.

Concentrating on both keeping out of the way and going for the goal is a kind of trial by fire. Pressure on their foot lets them know when they weren’t paying close enough attention !

Stick out your tongue

Marianas Variety Saipan
Run Date: July 6, 2007

FOR INFANTS
You don’t have to wait until your baby is older to play games. Here’s one you can play with even 3 month olds

STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE

Sticking your tongue out may make others wonder about you, but your baby will be fascinated. Think about it. The tongue looks like some lively little snake coming out of your mouth.

Having control over the tongue's movement ensures that the infant will develop the ability to form different sounds and eventually words. Try it.

MATERIALS:
You and your tongue

DIRECTIONS:
Get your child’s attention by softly calling to him and smiling. Once he notices you, stick out your tongue and waggle it a little and even add some soft sounds to keep his attention engaged. If you want, you can even gently touch his tongue to give him some sensory feedback on what part you are talking about.

Watch as he opens his mouth and begin to move his tongue. Once he gets it, add variations. Start showing him how to move his tongue in different directions. Start with side to side. Once he’s got that movement, go to up and down movements.

Play the game as long as he is interested. When he looks away or squirms, it means he’s done for now. Play again another day.

Toothpick Art

Marianas Variety Saipan
Run Date: June 29, 2007

FOR ALL AGES
There are many ways to teach the hands to have more finesse. This is one of them that you can play together.

TOOTHPICK ART

MATERIALS:
Toothpicks, plain or colored

DIRECTIONS:
Make an abstract design by laying toothpicks out on a table or floor, with each player adding their toothpick to the design. The first player puts down one toothpick and the next adds his at just the angle that seems pleasing to him. The next person then adds theirs to that design and so on and so on until an interesting design is formed.

Instead of an abstract design, you can make a specific scene. For example, make a house with a picket fence and trees with both of you doing different parts of the scene.

It takes concentration to pick up a skinny toothpick and decide the best place to put it. Placing each toothpick down carefully and trying not to jiggle the design encourages awareness of hand movements.

It also develops the pincer grasp, the small muscles that control the index finger and thumb.
But mainly, it’s fun to make art together.

Jumping on Newspaper

Marianas Variety Saipan
Run Date: June 22, 2007

FOR AGES 2-12
When you finish reading the daily paper, don’t throw it away, use it for a game for your kids!

JUMPING ON NEWSPAPER

MATERIALS:
Newspaper and tape

DIRECTIONS:
Tape down 6-9 newspaper sections.

Start off simply by asking the children to jump forward from the first section to the next. Let them do it a few times. Make the rule to always start from the first section and jump on each section until the last one so noone will bump into each other going both ways.

Then, start to get fancy and give different directions depending on the age of the child.

Jump sideways, right side leading
Jump sideways, left side leading
Jump backwards
Jump to every other one
Jump to every third one
Hop on the left foot
Hop on the right foot
Jump to every other square
Jump to every third one, if possible
Jump and twirl before landing
Make a giant leap and aim for the farthest one they can reach.

Moms and Dads can get turns too!

Balloon Baseball

Marianas Variety Newspaper
Run Date: June 15, 2007

FOR AGES 1-5
Baseball may be fun but those little balls can hurt and are hard to hit. For young ones, use a balloon!

BALLOON BASEBALL

MATERIALS:
Balloon
Bat: Make a bat out of anything handy, such as the inside cardboard tube of a paper towel roll or a rolled up section of yesterdays newspaper secured with tape.

If you want a bat that will last, try using a large two-liter soft-drink plastic bottle, the kind soft drinks come in. Cut a dowel or stick to fit inside the opening of the plastic bottle. Wrap some duct tape around the dowel and bottle opening to keep it secure and viola; you have a nifty bat (or hockey stick or golf club.)

DIRECTIONS:
Give the bat to your player and toss the balloon at her. The slow movements of a balloon floating towards her gives her plenty of time to line up her bat, swing at the ‘ball" and get the satisfaction of "connecting."

If there is just the two of you, take turns being the pitcher/catcher and the batter.

If there are other players, their job is catching the "ball" as it leisurely floats down. Who ever catches it can have the next turn at batting or give it to someone who hasn’t had enough turns.

After everyone gets all the turns they want, you can change the game to "Golf". Use boxes turned on their sides as "holes" and players see how many strokes it takes to hit the balloon in the box.

Whose head is in the clouds?

Marianas Variety Saipan
Run Date: June 8, 2007

FOR ALL AGES
Usually, having your head in the clouds means the opposite of paying attention, but in this game, you need to focus all of your attention on clouds. We all know that clouds make fantastic shapes, but usually we forget to take the time to notice. In this whimsical game, if you both see the exact same thing in the shape of a cloud, it’s a fun bonding experience.

WHOSE HEAD IS IN THE CLOUDS?

MATERIALS:
None but a lovely day full of clouds

DIRECTIONS:
When sitting outside, lying on the beach or looking out a window, take turns looking around for an identifiable shape in the clouds. Point out different parts of the shape until you can all see it,. "See the puffy headed dinosaur? That long trailing part is the tail and that lump at the other end is the puffy head with a round nose."

After you’ve identified a bunch of creatures, you can make up stories about what they are doing up there together!