Give your child a personal notebook or journal. Encourage her to decorate the cover. If you don’t have a notebook, staple plain white sheets of paper together to make a book. At the end of each day ask your child to think about the activities she enjoyed and those she did not enjoy as much. Write down what your child shares. Have her draw a picture to accompany what she told you. Talk with your child and ask questions about her day to get her to elaborate and add details to her picture. This will be a memory book to enjoy in the years ahead.

Invite your child to guess how many steps he will need to take to get to a specific place or room (kitchen, window, door) in the house. After he has made a prediction, invite him to walk to the specified place. Help count the steps. Discuss his predictions. Did it take more or less steps? What if he took giant steps? How many hops will it take? How many steps would it take you? This is also a fun outside activity.

Use a box (like a shoe box). Help your child cover it with construction paper, contact paper, duct tape, or paint. Using construction paper or other materials easily found around your house work with your child to add windows, doors, trees, etc. (or draw on details). Have your child draw the members of your family (they may want to include the pets, too) and attach to tongue depressors or something that can be used to help the figures stand and place them in the house. If your child finds this activity fun, they may want to create other houses or buildings in your community.

Let your child pick five to ten of his stuffed animals and hide them around your house while your he watches the timer! When the timer goes off, the search begins! Add a little more fun, by letting your child hide the animals and you go on the hunt!

Have your child name the things in the picture. Then ask the child to say a sentence or two about the picture, for example, “I saw a big tree outside.” Write the child's words on the bottom of the picture and read them back to her. As you write, say the words out loud and name the letters as you write them. Encourage your child to read the sentence, too.

Play Simon Says: This is a fun game for young children to play and it encourages good listening skills and focus. You are Simon. Stand facing your children and give commands, such as "Simon says to touch your knees" or "Simon says jump up and down." As you call out each order, the children must do whatever you say, as long as you have said, "Simon Says." If you just say,"Do this", whoever follows the action that you now do, is out. The last child standing wins. Switch things up by letting your child be Simon and give you commands.

Take a walk outside and play I Spy. I Spy is a game where one person describes something they spy and the other person tries to guess what it is. Make the descriptions as vivid as possible. Take turns playing with your child.

Go on a noticing nature walk.
Walk with your child, at your child’s pace.
Encourage your child to pay attention to his environment with all his senses. You can do this by asking questions as you go. For example:

• Seeing questions: What can you see? Look all around you, up at the sky and down at the ground.
• Smelling questions: What can you smell? Can you describe the smell? Leafy? Like mud?
• Hearing questions: What can you hear? Birds? The wind? Other people?
• Feeling and touching questions: What can you feel? Is the sun warm? Is the ground rough or smooth?

When you get home, make some time for your child to reflect on the walk. She could draw pictures of it, write a story about it, or perhaps make a collage with her leaves and feathers.

Shadow Drawings: Let shadows be your child’s guide for this activity. In the morning (8 a.m.) or late afternoon (4 p.m.), place a table (or use your driveway) in a sunny spot where long shadows will be cast. Lay out several pieces of white paper and arrange a variety of objects along the paper’s edge. Have your child trace the shadows with markers. Talk about what happened to each outlined drawing.

Cloud Watching Adventure: Lie down and watch clouds with your child. Let your imaginations run wild as you spot shapes in the clouds. When you go back inside, have your child draw objects he/saw in the sky. Questions to Ask: What do you see in the sky? How did you know that was ____? What shapes do you see in the sky? Where do clouds come from? What are they made of? Why are they shaped like that? How do they move? Why are there clouds sometimes, but not other times? Are there clouds when it's dark? Why are some clouds light and fluffy, but others are dark and gray? What else do they look like?

Nature Treasure Hunt Collage: Pick an area around your home/neighborhood and go for a nature walk. Have your child pick up items that peak his/her interest from nature. Come home and on a piece of paper or carboard, glue the items down and have your child tell you why he/she picked them.

Search for animal tracks: In your yard or your neighborhood, go on a search for animal tracks. After looking around your neighborhood, have your child draw animal tracks they saw on their nature walk.

Questions to Ask: What do you think left that mark on the ground? Where is that animal going? What kind of habitat does that animal live in?

Water Painting: Take a paint brush and a cup of water outside. Have your child dip the paint brush into the water and paint on stairs, pavement, or your driveway! This activity helps develop small hand and arm muscles. There’s virtually no prep time and clean-up is a breeze!

Paint brush hack: If you don’t have a paint brush handy, use a clothespin and attach a common household items (muffin liner, kitchen sponge, pompom, pipe cleaner, piece of a loofah, etc.).

Musical Feelings Game

Begin by drawing feeling faces on paper and placing them in a big circle on the floor. Turn on some music and have your child walk, hop, jump or skip around the circle. After a little while, stop the music. When the music stops, have your child identify the feeling they are standing on. Children can also make the face for the feeling they are standing on and have others guess the feeling.

Kind Words Sensory Friendship Activity

If words were cotton balls, how would it feel to have them bouncing on your arm? Fill your cup up with cotton balls and pour it out on each child's arm. Have your children tell you words that are like cotton balls {for example: please, thank-you, compliments, May I help you?, good job, etc.}. Present a piece of coarse sandpaper for each child to touch. As they touch it, ask them how the sandpaper feels. Use descriptive words like rough, poky, or sharp. If words were sandpaper, how would it feel to have them rubbing on your arm? {We won't really do it because it would hurt.} Have your children tell you words that are like sandpaper {for example: mean words, a mean voice, calling names, unnecessary criticism, etc.}. Show your children how sandpaper can scratch something like a scrap of wood or a piece of plastic. Tell them sandpaper words "scratch" our feelings. It hurts when people talk to us in a mean voice or say mean things.

Emotions Play Dough

Draw a face outline on a piece of paper. Give children some play dough and allow them to create emotions on the face outline. Have children describe the emotion, using feelings words. Parents can describe an emotion and have the child create the emotion with play dough.

Emotion Eggs

Begin by drawing a variety of facial expressions on each of the plastic eggs. Some suggestions are happy, sad, confused, angry and proud. The joy of using emotion eggs is that you can mix and match all of the eggs to create brand new emotions! Practice role playing with the eggs – act out little scenarios to represent each emotion egg. Play copy-cats with the eggs – work out the muscles in your face by copying the emotions on each egg. Use a mirror while copying the emotions to see how your face looks with each emotion.

Feelings Hop

Create feelings mats by drawing emotion faces on blank paper or cardboard. Tape feelings mats to the floor. Call out a feeling and children must hop or jump to the feeling you call out. Ask children how they feel when they experience that emotion. You can take this activity outside by drawing emotion faces with chalk on the driveway or sidewalk.

Talking with Children about Coronavirus

The links below provide guidance for families when discussing the Coronavirus with children.

Talking With Your Child About COVID-19

Spanish Version: Talking With Your Child About COVID-19