Happy Friday! We are almost through another week. We hope these invitations bring some joy and wonder into your home today. Have a great weekend!
Building Invitation: Block building
This morning you might consider pulling out whatever blocks you have and inviting your toddler to build. You can also invite them to build with empty cardboard or paperboard boxes. The invitation can be varied by where you put the blocks (a different room, on a table instead of the floor, or even onto a porch). You can also add small people or animal figures. Can you toddler build something as tall as their waist? Can they build a home for a person or animal? What else might they create?
Blocks provide an opportunity for children to continue building and refining connecting and disconnecting schema, they are a medium for increasing imagination as well. Building towers and houses requires persistence, especially on novel surfaces.
Art Invitation: Paint and cardboard
This invitation can be offered with any type of child-safe paint including homemade liquid watercolors from dry washable markers (see this Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh video for a how-to). An empty cardboard box becomes a 3-D canvas in this invitation. Your toddler may paint the outside, or the inside of the box.
The sides present new challenges for applying paint and an opportunity to explore the effect of gravity on liquid paint. Holding the brush is exercise for fine motor muscles. Open-ended painting is an opportunity for creative expression.
Large Motor Invitation: Dance party!
You can offer your child’s favorite music, or try some new movement songs. Koo Koo Kanga Roo has many exciting songs, or you can check out local artist Baron Von Rumblebuss.
Dance is a wonderful way to build balance, coordination and other motor skills. Children also love to express themselves through movement.
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