—Marlene, Georgetown, Kentucky
94
Bed Headboards
Make them yourself!
Use theme fabric, batting, and a staple gun to cover plywood for an upholstered look. Or paint a piece of canvas with an original design. Mount whitewashed fencing or lattice material to the wall for a picketfence theme. Use thicker wood for a western look.
Mount wooden baseball bats (you can drill right into them) as the slats for a headboard (you can buy the posts and center rail at a home center).
Drape tulle from ceiling hooks or mosquito netting from a ring for a princess feel.
Section Two:
Playtime
Let’s Get Physical
95
Scarf Play
Age Range: 15 to 18 months
Scarves are a must for any play box. Here are all the fun things you can do with them.
Throw them in the air and watch them float down to the ground, then imitate the movements the scarf made while floating downward.
Throw a bunch of them in the air and try to catch them as they float to the floor. Call out body parts while the scarves are in the air and try to catch them with those parts—“On your knees!” “Now on your nose!” Hold a scarf in each hand as you make big shapes in the air, then ask your child to copy the shapes you are making.
Run with a scarf in each hand, letting the scarves flutter behind you.
Make up an interactive dance of scarves as you wave your scarf around, over, and under your child as your child sits still on the floor. Switch positions.
Tie the ends of the scarves together and stuff them into an old Kleenex box or paper-towel tube, then pull the scarves out.
With the scarves tied together, wiggle them on the floor in a big side-to-side motion and ask your child to jump over the scarves as they move.
96
Rope Shapes
Age Range: 18 months and up
Materials
Rope of any kind
With a jump rope or length of cord, make a simple shape on the floor. Together, you and your child try to duplicate the shape with your bodies. Good shapes to try are rectangles, circles, straight lines, triangles, and curved or jagged lines. If other family members or other children are present, you may be able to do more complicated shapes, like letters or animals.
* Words of Wisdom *
My son’s favorite game before he learned to walk was for me to put a beanbag on his back while he crawled as fast as he could. I would mark how far he crawled before the beanbag fell off. He spent hours trying to beat his best mark.
—Glenda, Holland, Michigan
97
Racing Game
Age Range: 18 months and up
Once a child learns to crawl or walk, all sorts of fun racing games are possible. Every race needs a starting line and a finish line. Don’t forget to say, “On your mark, get set, go” before each race. Here are a few race ideas:
Crawl on the floor pushing a beach ball in front of you with your head. The first one whose ball crosses the line wins.
Lie on your side and roll to the finish line.
Walk on tiptoes, hop, skip, jump, run, slide, or gallop.
Put a beanbag on each of your backs as you crawl to the finish line. Each person puts on dress-up clothes before beginning. The first person to run over the finish line after putting the clothes on wins.
* Words of Wisdom *
My son’s absolute favorite indoor activity is to sit on a blanket or large beach towel and have me pull him around the house. This only works on our wood floors.
—Eliza, Cooper City, Florida
98
Construction Zone
Age Range: 18 months and up
With a few big boxes, old blankets, and sheets, a city, spaceship, stage, or circus can be built. Clear a space inside or outside the house. Collect old blankets and sheets. Use the backs of couches, the swing set, outdoor furniture, or anything else you can find to drape the blankets over to create tent-like structures. If the furniture is cloth, you can use large safety pins to attach the blankets or sheets. You may even want to create a permanent fort-building supply box, including blankets and sheets that have slits cut in them one-half inch long, two inches away from the edge of the material. The slits will allow you to tie the sheets and blankets to various objects with string or ribbon.
99
Animal Play
Age Range: 18 months and up
Materials
Large paper grocery bags
Decorating supplies: colored construction paper, glue, fake fur, ribbons, yarn, paper streamers, paint, crayons, masking tape
It is much more fun to act like an animal if you look like one as well. Cut the paper bag up the front. Make a hole in the bottom of the bag for the head and holes for the arms so the bag fits like a jacket. Place the bag over the back of a chair so that it’s easier to decorate. Decide what kind of animal you will be and then begin decorating. Your child might want to make up his own kind of animal, adding the trunk of an elephant to the black and white body of a zebra. Once the costumes are made, put them on and begin the animal dance. Move like your animal, make sounds, and pretend to eat and play like animals.
100
Mirror Dancing
Age Range: 21 to 24 months
Sit or stand in front of a large mirror. Begin your dance moving just your face and head. Help your child to move with you as he copies the movements you are making. Then raise your arms and move your legs as you encourage the same movements in your child. If your child raises her arm or turns in a circle, copy her. Once you’ve done this in the mirror for a while, turn to face each other. Now you will each be the mirror for each other. One person goes first making the movements as the other person follows. Switch so that each person has a chance to be the leader a few times.
* Words of Wisdom *
My daughter says she doesn’t like dancing to music...until I let her wear her “twirly dress.” When we put that on, she’ll dance like crazy for nearly an hour. After one of those dance sessions, she takes a wonderfully long afternoon nap!
—Kealsy, North Bennington, Vermont
101
Indoor Baseball
Age Range: 21 to 36 months
It is possible to play baseball in the house without breaking anything. First you need to set up bases. The distance between them depends on the size of the room. You may want to change the rules so that the batter has to hop or crawl to the base after hitting the ball. Once the pitcher catches the hit ball, the pitcher has to run with the ball and touch the batter. Try using an inflated balloon or balled-up newspaper as a ball and an empty gift-wrap roll stuffed with newspaper as the bat. Of course, you’ll also have to set up a location for batting practice. Attach a string to a soft ball, inflated balloon, or rolled-up newspaper. Hang the string with the ball falling at about your child’s waist level from the ceiling or middle of a doorway. Show your child how to push the ball on the string and then try to hit it with the bat when the ball swings back.
102
Dance Fun
Age Range: 21 to 24 months
Hat dance: Hats come in all shapes and sizes. There are sun hats, hats with dog ears, pointed princess hats, cowboy hats, and Mexican sombreros. Put all your dress-up hats in a box. As you put each one on do a dance that matches the style of the hat.
Shake dance: Shout out different body parts for your child to shake. Let your child yell out body parts and watch you shake. Then shake together.
Flypaper dance: Attach contact paper to the floor with masking tape, leaving the sticky side up. Now fly around the room like little flies. When you come to rest on the contact paper, dance frantically to escape being caught on the sticky flypaper.
103
Mattress Trampoline
Age Range: 24 months and up
Jumping is a favorite toddler activity. When your child has outgrown the crib, why not use the crib mattress on the floor as a
trampoline? Make sure to move it away from the wall and put pillows around it just in case. Any kind of old mattress will work. Make up all sorts of bouncing games. Try to catch a ball in the air as you bounce, or go from feet to knees to bottom. Call out body parts to touch while in the air. Change facial expressions. Join hands and bounce together.
104
Freeze and Melt
Age Range: 24 to 30 months
This is a stop-and-go movement game with many variations. Have your child run freely around the room. When you say “freeze,” she must stop and remain absolutely still. When you say “melt,” your child can relax and start to move around again. Try the game again using music instead of your voice. Encourage your child to dance while the music is playing. When the music is turned off she freezes. When the music starts up she melts and begins to dance again. You can also make up other actions to follow the “freeze,” like slow-motion. Other good action words to try might be “speed up,” “down low,” or “up high.”
105
Chalk Town
Age Range: 24 to 30 months
Materials
Sidewalk chalk
Pavement or washable floor
Small cars and trucks
Cardboard
Blocks
Take the sidewalk chalk and draw a miniature town with roads, homes, a shopping center, school, airport, and gas station. Use the cardboard and blocks to make tunnels, bridges, and road signs. Drive the small cars and trucks around town, making sure to stop and visit each chalked location.
106
Masking Tape Work-Out
Age Range: 30 to 36 months
Kids love to move, wiggle, jump, roll, stamp their feet, and run in place. Set up a special work-out space for your child. Use masking tape to make shapes and lines on the floor or carpet. Have your child do some aerobic exercise in each space before following the line to the next shape. Make sure you get a work-out, too—let your child call out which activity you need to do when you get to the next space. Be sure to take off the tape when you’re done playing, or the tape will get gooey and become nearly impossible to remove from carpeting.
107
Follow the Leader
Age Range: 30 to 36 months
Follow the Leader is a fun game you can play every day. It lends itself to dozens of made up variations. Here are a few to try:
Pretend to be spaceships, race cars, airplanes, bicycles, bulldozers, or fairies.
Take turns leading, and ask each other to guess what you are before copying.
Lead around the house or yard, introducing concepts like behind/in front, inside/outside, up/down, in/out, and left/right. Yell out the words as you do them.
Act big and small, short and tall, loud and quiet. Use exaggerated voices to emphasize the difference—loud and booming for big, or quiet and squeaky for small.
Ball Play
108
Balls a Rollin’
Age Range: 15 months and up
Young toddlers who aren’t quite ready to catch a ball will enjoy these rolling games.
Sit across from each other and roll the ball back and forth.
Sit together and roll the ball into a goal that is set up across the room.
Set up empty plastic soda bottles and roll the ball, trying to knock all the bottles over.
Roll the ball out in front of the two of you, then have a crawling race to get the ball.
Ask your child to lie on the floor on his stomach and roll the ball all over his body for a nice massage.
Have your child lie on his side, making a crescent shape with his body. Roll the ball along the back and front of the crescent. Try making different shapes.
109
Parachute Ball
Age Range: 15 months and up
Materials
Old sheet, blanket, beach towel, or play parachute
Balls of all sizes
If there are just two of you playing, use a beach towel. If more hands are available, use a sheet or parachute. Put a ball in the middle of the sheet, blanket, towel, or parachute. Have your child grab two corners and you grab two. If there are more people, ask them to hold edges of the material so that the ball doesn’t fall off when it begins to roll. Get the ball rolling by lifting up one end of the fabric and then the other. Try raising the fabric up into the air quickly (and all together) to cause the ball to be propelled into the air, then try to catch the ball in the fabric as it falls. Lower the fabric all the way to the ground, then raise it high in the air. Let go of the fabric and hide so that the fabric and ball do not fall on top of you. Let your child lie on one end of the fabric, making sure that his head is clearly sticking out, then roll him up like a sausage. Once rolled up, hold the free end and let him roll out. Point out how he can also roll like a ball.
110
Tube Roll
Age Range: 18 months and up
Materials
Cardboard or plastic tubing (from poster shop or hardware store)
Masking tape
Small balls (large enough to avoid choking)
Use the different sizes and types of tubing to set up ball-roll games. Masking tape the tube to a chair and let the ball fall out into a basket. Tape a vertically leaning tube to a horizontal tube which is sitting on the floor to watch the ball roll out on the floor in the direction of a set target. Flexible tubing can be molded around objects, while clear tubing allows your child to watch the ball as it makes its way to the target location. If you have a stair rail, tie or tape the tubing to the rail and send the ball down the tube and into a bucket at the bottom of the stairs. Once tube construction begins, the design options are endless.
111
Balloon Tennis
Age Range: 18 months and up
Materials
Badminton racquet, ping-pong paddle, or cardstock in the shape of a paddle taped to a wooden spoon
Toddlers have such fun watching the cause and effect any kind of hitting action has on a balloon as it floats to the ceiling or over a net. First begin by hitting the balloon up toward the ceiling. Take turns hitting the balloon as it floats down. This will teach your child the idea that first one person hits it and then the other. Then tie a string between two kitchen chairs to act as a net. Stand on either side of the net close enough that when you hit the balloon, it will make it over the string. Use the same action of hitting the balloon upward and toward the other player, who will then hit the balloon back over the string.
112
Bumper Ball
Age Range: 18 months and up
Rolling lots of balls around an enclosed room, like a bathroom or kitchen, is exciting. Catching and pushing are only part of the fun—mostly it’s watching all the balls bump into things and guessing what direction they might go next. Try standing on one end of the room and kicking the ball toward the side wall while you guess where the ball might ricochet and hit the other wall. Put an object in the middle of the room and see what happens when the ball collides with the object. Make sure the room you use is free of sharp corners so that your child will not reach down to pick up a ball and bang his head.
* Words of Wisdom *
My mom always said a ball about the size of a child’s head is just right—any bigger and it overwhelms, and any smaller and it’s hard to control and balance.
—Brett, Clarksville, Tennessee
113
Bedroom Basketball
Age Range: 24 months and up
Materials
Laundry basket
Sock, foam, or tennis balls
Place the laundry basket on top of a dresser for a game of basketball. Roll socks into balls, crunch up paper, or try a soft tennis ball. Try making a basket from different locations in the room. The lay-up shot includes taking two steps before shooting a basket from close range. The free throw might be from the head of the bed or some other distant location. Older kids can get into the action and play a game of “cow.” One player shoots a basket from a specific loc
ation in the room. If the basket is good then the other player has to make a basket from that same location or he gets the letter “c.” If both players make the basket from that location, the second player gets to choose a location to shoot the basket from. Whenever a player misses a basket that has been made by the player before him, another letter is added. Whoever spells the word “cow” first loses.
114
Big Ball Rolling
Age Range: 24 months and up
Materials
Large rubber ball (sold as exercise or physical-therapy balls)
Have your child lie across the top of the ball on his stomach, as you hold onto his ankles and rock him back and forth.
Sit at least ten feet apart, facing each other. Push the ball back and forth with different body parts: your legs, heads, hands, elbows, or hips.
Have your child lie across the top of the ball, face upward. This will give him a relaxing back stretch, but make sure he doesn’t fall off the ball!
Sheila Ellison Page 7