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!