Dramatic play, imaginative play, creative play, role-playing, make-believe or just plain pretending…is a foundation of childhood development. Play kitchens along with play food are a go to for dramatic play, as it gives children the opportunity to imitate what they often see adults doing. Dramatic play allows children to imagine themselves in new roles and cook up exciting scenarios. Excellerations® Colorful Plush Fruits & Veggies #gifted are such a great addition for play kitchens especially for toddlers. The colors and plush pieces help develop color recognition and sorting skills by using familiar objects and shapes. Children learn through play and are always exploring and experimenting – so kitchen dramatic play allows children to perform different roles and test their own creativity. They learn many things through trial and error, and what better way to try out various scenarios and situations than through pretending they are in them.

When a child shows extreme interest in a subject matter, creating invitations to build upon their curiosity honors their learning process by letting them be active collaborators. While it may steer away from your planned lessons, curriculum, concepts or theme, it provides for a meaningful experience to guide a child's exploration in something they are interested in. Recently Cy has been completely enamored with cars. So my wheels are already spinning with ideas to create invitations to provide more opportunities to explore cars. The book All Kinds of Cars by Carl Johanson is a fantastic whacky filled visual collection of cars that we read every night. I just had to bring these silly images onto a larger scale for him to see. He has also really been into coloring, so naturally a big butcher paper of the images from the story had to happen. Coloring is a gradual process. By offering toddler thick sturdy materials such as these tempera sticks is a great way for your child to explore and experiment. It's all about putting their hands with these tools and letting them scribble and color all over the place rather than give instructions and color in the lines. Obviously as you can see I had some fun and colored along with him, which brought about so much more language and engagement. The more exposure a child gets early on will only give them more confidence in what they can achieve to make them feel more independent. While this isn‘t 100% process art driven it has great value to create an invitation such as this that makes them feel as active collaborators in their learning process. A butcher paper filled with what they are interested deepens their literacy skills in connection to the book, makes the child pay attention to all the details in the drawings, enhance color recognition, fine motor skills, and provide more language development.

This invitation to create consists of snow flake process art three ways. Snow Flake Resist Art inspired by Busy Toddler's resist tape , Salt Painted Snowflakes, and Coffee Filter Snowflakes. Before inviting a child to create snowflakes you can read a book, show images or videos of snowflakes to open up a discussion and ignite their curiosity about them. For example showing the structure of a snowflake and explaining how no two snowflakes are exactly the same and they are all six-sided hexagonal shapes due to the molecular structure of ice. This will integrate and deepen their connection with snowflakes. Snow flake resist art simply consists of placing tape in a snowflake design on cardboard and having your child paint all over the cardboard with a paint brush . Once it dries, remove the tape and see the amazing design it created. Salt Painted Snowflakes consists of creating designs with glue , sprinkle it with salt or epsom salt, and let it dry. Once dry provide the child with liquid water colors to paint the snowflakes. They can use either droppers, pipettes, or paint brushes. Coffee Filter Snowflakes consists of simply letting you child paint the filters with liquid colors. They can use either droppers , pipettes , or paint brushes . After the coffee filters dry, if the child is old enough they can cut designs if not you can.

Jingle all the way with these STEAM invitations to explore bells 4 ways! 1) Invitation to explore bells with magnetic wands in water. Place water, bells , and a couple drops of liquid water colors . Invite your child to capture the bells with the wands. 2) Invitation to paint with bells and magnetic wands. Take a piece of cardboard, place drops of tempera paint and bells on top and then have your child move the bells by moving the wand underneath. 3) Invitation to explore sensory tubes filled with bells. Fill a sensory tube or empty plastic bottle with bells. Invite child to move the bells with a magnetic wand. 4) Invitation to build with bells. Provide your child with magnetic blocks + bells and simply let them build. So much Science Technology Enginering Art and Math in exploring bells!

With lights twinkling every where for the holidays, an invitation to explore icy lights is a fun way to connect what they are seeing in the world around them. Lights bring such curiosity in a child’s eyes, the colors and twinkles fill their world with wonder. To create this invitation get the most out of using your water beads first by letting your children play with water beads in other invitations such as a simple set up of pouring and scooping. Getting the last use of them by freezing the water beads in ice trays, placing string, water, and removing them once they are ready. Place the lights in a sensory bin with droppers and Colorations liquid water colors to excavate, release, and melt the lights. This invitation has SO MANY learning opportunities from color recognition, strengthening fine motor skills by using droppers, building their cognitive skills on how and what will melt ice, exploring STEAM, and sensory play.

To do this invitation to create grab some recycled cardboard, Colorations Tempera Paint , glitter , glue , string and a hot glue gun . Cut out strips for the base and strips large to small for the tree. With a hot glue gun assemble the tree. Cut out different shapes or figures for ornaments. Next invite the child to paint the tree and ornaments. Let it dry and then decorate with glitter and place string on the ornaments. After everything is ready invite the child to decorate the tree by hanging the ornaments. This invitation to create is a great two part activity where they are exploring both process art initially and later enhancing their fine motor and hand eye corrdination skills when hanging the ornaments. There is so much creativity in both processes and the end product is sure magical!

This invitation to create a Christmas tree is set up by placing natural brown butcher paper , drawing different variations of trees and a tinker tray filled loose parts + play dough. The tinker tray is filled with wood circles , sticks , flat marbles, buttons , wooden rings, cookie cutters and play dough . Loose parts are dynamic in nature, which brings about authenticity of ideas. The more variables an object offers the more possibilities and creativity the object will have. Children will have a higher level of learning and understanding of how things work. Invitations enhance a child's free creative play, exposure to sensory elements, requires concentration, and are truly relaxing and stimulating. Safety Notes: Anytime a child, no matter the age, is provided with or near any choking hazard supervision is of the utmost priority. Anytime boundaries need to be established to ensure safety before inviting a child to play is a great opportunity to guide a child to interact with objects and materials in a safe manner. Therefore having discussions or modeling before they engage in loose parts play is ideal. If it is not within your threshold of comfort to provide your child or children in your care with loose parts that is completely understandable.

If quarantine hasn’t taught you to save recycled items, start now saving those tubes now. With cds and recycled tubes you can invite a child to explore STEM block play in a while new way. This isn’t traditional block play because the items being used are out of the norm, which makes for a great STEM challenge. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. With this STEM invitation the child is able to test how to build a structure through a lot of a trial and error, to test the right amount of pieces, to create a solid base, and attain basic engineering skills through using their fine motor skills. Building structures, whatever they may be, is an amazing way for a child to learn through play.

In the story Flashlight by Lizi Boyd told solely through images and using a spare yet dramatic palette, the exploration of night, nature, and art are a visual poem—like the flashlight beam itself. This story reveals that there is magic in the darkness, we just have to look for it. To integrate this literacy experience setting out translucent blocks and a flash light is a great invitation to explore light through block play. Reading stories and then connecting it to hands on play further let’s the child comprehend and process the content within the book. You can most certainly see and hear them reenacting pages from the book, while using their own imagnation to put their spin on it. Since Children are naturally drawn to both light and building, this makes for a unique engaging experience. With block play there is a natural progression. The child has to learn how to move and manipulate various shaped objects, big and small, as well as have the fine motor control to “click” them into place. Building with toys help children enhance their visual-spatial skills which is crucial for reading readiness. It also encourages thinking and reasoning. These skills are what make children become well-rounded, independent and successful adults! Involves focus and patience. Children need to work slowly and carefully to be successful at creating their designs. Using their imagination boosts cognitive, academic, language and social growth. When building, kids need to decide what will or won’t work. Through building, children learn to experiment and make new discoveries about how things work. Builds confidence. Once that masterpiece is finished, children are so proud of their accomplishments. It increases their belief in themselves. Block play is just another reason why play matters.

This sensory bin is to invite a child to simply explore snow and spheres! Steve Spangler Insta-Snow® as the base, Sensory Reflective Silver Balls , White Ball Pit Balls, frozen spheres made from water balloons and water mixed with Colorations Liquid Water colors in beakers to experiment with melting ice with pipettes and droppers. Sensory play is, quite simply, any activity that stimulates the senses. When children play with a sensory bin, they are playing with a variety of materials + textures which stimulate the mind and body through the tactile experience. They explore so many concepts such as science, math, senses, language and more. Since children learn best and retain the most information when they engage their senses, inviting children the opportunity to investigate sensory materials with no preconceived knowledge, we are helping them develop and refine their cognitive, social and emotional, physical, creative and linguistic skill sets, simply through exploring and experimenting.

Playing with a dreidel is a traditional game during the holiday Hanukkah. A dreidel is a pointed, four-sided top which can be made to spin on its pointed base. To take a spin on exploring how dreidels move through an action process art invitation is perfect way to learn more about the holiday game. All you need to do is grab some old recycled cds, Colorations markers , and butcher paper . Action process art involves art activities that are hands-on, where the focus is on the process rather than the finished product. “Action Art projects result in products to be enjoyed and admired, but it is the process of exploration and experimenting that stimulates the child’s learning from discovering and creating…” from Action Art . You can invite the child to practice with a real dreidel first, followed by letting the children explore and create with DIY spin-art dreidels. All aspects of the spin-art dreidel from spinning to twisting explore STEAM concepts. Children will be completely immersed in the process of creating while learnjng how dreidels spin.

Setting aside paint brushes from time to time to explore painting with other materials is a great way for a child to experiment with different ways to paint. With gift bows, butcher paper , and Colorations Tempera Paint from Discount School Supply, this invitation to paint inspires the child to paint in a different medium. Simply changing the tool a child paints with can ignite the child to observe not only the different paint colors and textures, but how it prints and moves. Process art experiences help children become more and more thoughtful about the techniques they use which instills the power of wonder and laying the foundation for creativity. "When children explore art ideas, they are testing possibilities and working through challenges, much like a scientist who experiments and finds solutions. Art allows children to make their own assessments, while also teaching them that a problem may have more than one answer. Instead of following specific rules or directions, the child’s brain becomes engaged in the discovery of “how” and “why.” MaryAnn Kohl