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    101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .
    101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .
    101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .
    Ebook259 pages2 hours

    101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .

    By Carol Stock Kranowitz

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    About this ebook

    You can never have enough space. And if you can't, just think of your kids--all the time they have to spend in tight spaces--like cars, planes, trains, the doctor's office, the grocery store, being sick or housebound, waiting in line. Kids need room to move around, but there are many times when they just plain can't have it.

    While raising two exuberant boys, teaching preschool, leading Cub Scouts, and running a birthday party business, Carol Stock Kranowitz came up with savvy, creative ways to keep kids content in tight spaces. In 101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces, her activity ideas combine old standbys with new ones born of desperation and cramped quarters. They follow a philosophy that helps kids develop their different skills and abilities while entertaining themselves and interacting.

    You'll find great projects for every imaginable small space parents and children encounter:

    Fun Food for Tiny Kitchens: Ants on a Log, Footprints in the Snow, and Aiken Drum Faces

    In the Urban Community: Windowsill Garden, Bug Jar, and Corn-on-the-Sponge

    When the Walls Seem to Be Closing In: Pillow Crashing, People Sandwich, and Teeter-Totter

    When what you've got is a small space and a restless child, what you need are 101 ingenious solutions--right away. Here they are--easy to implement, creative fun for the three to seven-year-old--activities that can turn tough moments into teachable, terrific ones.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateDec 16, 2014
    ISBN9781466887145
    101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces: At the Doctor's Office, on Car, Train, and Plane Trips, Home Sick in Bed . . .
    Author

    Carol Stock Kranowitz

    Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A., is a music and movement teacher in Washington, D.C. Carol is the author of 101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband; they have two sons.

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      Book preview

      101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces - Carol Stock Kranowitz

      The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

      CONTENTS

      TITLE PAGE

      COPYRIGHT NOTICE

      DEDICATION

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      A TIGHT SPACE PHILOSOPHY

      WHY THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT

      AGE RANGE

      THE SETUP OF THE ACTIVITIES

      1

      THERE’S NOTHING TO DO

      (HOUSEBOUND AFTERNOONS)

      ART AND CARPENTRY ACTIVITIES

      Punched Paper Activities:

      Chomp the Monster

      Faces and Laces

      Paper Plate Tambourine

      Collage

      Wood Scrap Sculpture

      Paper Towel Tie-Dye

      Neat Place Cards

      Fingerpainting with Shaving Cream

      Lunch Bag Puppet

      Mobile

      Newspaper Hat

      Soap Sculpture

      Wooden Paddle Boat

      Nail Board

      If I Had a Hammer

      NATURE AND SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

      Bug Jar

      Pinecone Bird Feeders

      Waterdrop Doggies

      Windowsill Garden:

      Avocado Plant

      Vegetable Greens

      Potato Plants

      Corn-on-the-Sponge

      Mystery Plant

      Terrarium

      MUSIC AND SOUND EXPERIMENTS

      Drawing to Music

      Rubber-Band Harp

      Chicken Squawker

      Jingle-on-a-Stick

      Keyboard Stories

      Waterglass Xylophone

      FUN FOOD ACTIVITIES

      Ants on a Log

      Footprints in the Snow

      Aiken Drum Faces

      Construction Snacks

      Muffin Pizzas

      Baked Surprise

      Kranberry Shapes

      HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES

      House of Cards

      Domino Lineup

      Sorting Jobs

      Special Collections

      Memory Box

      Kite String Spiderweb

      Marbleship Battle

      Marble Chute

      DRAMATIC PLAY

      Nursery Rhyme Playlets:

      Little Miss Muffet

      Jack Be Nimble

      Little Bo-Peep

      Little Jack Horner

      Fairy Tale Playlets:

      The Three Little Pigs

      The Three Billy Goats Gruff

      Real Life Playlets:

      Shoe Store

      Barbershop

      Classroom

      Secret Hideaway

      2

      I’M ALL REVVED UP or I’M TOO POOPED TO PLAY

      MOVEMENT ACTIVITIES

      Pillow Crashing

      The Feet-Beat Game

      Back-to-Back Stand-Up Game

      People Sandwich

      Teeter-Totter

      Ripping and Rolling Newspaper

      COOKING AND GOOKING ACTIVITIES

      Smash Hit Cookies

      Oobleck

      Stretchy Gook

      Homemade Playdough

      MUSIC AND SOUND ACTIVITIES

      Spoon Bell

      Kazoo

      Homemade Drums:

      Oatmeal Box Drum

      Tin Can Bongo

      Flowerpot Timpani

      Chopstick Mallet

      Film Canister Shaker

      Talking String

      3

      I FEEL YUCKY ALL OVER

      (SICK IN BED)

      Cutting Magazines and Catalogs

      Favorite Things Scrapbook

      Stringing Projects:

      Stringing Buttons

      Stringing with Pipe Cleaners

      Stringing Macaroni

      Musical Metal Wind Chimes

      Flour Sifting

      Coloring Flowers

      Felt Board Fun

      4

      WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET THERE?

      (CAR, TRAIN, AND PLANE TRIPS)

      Busy Box

      Trip Tapes

      Ojos de Dios

      Pipe Cleaner Garland

      Fifty States License Plates Game

      Road Sign Alphabet

      Highway Scavenger Hunt

      Grandmother’s Trunk

      Memory Booster

      Apples Are Red

      Joint Squeeze

      5

      I WANT TO GO HOME!

      (DOCTOR’S OFFICE, GROCERY STORE, WAITING IN LINE)

      What If?

      People Watching

      Add-a-Line Stories

      Fill-in-the-Rhyme

      Grocery Search

      Unfolded Monster Drawings

      Flip Book

      Whirling Button

      COPYRIGHT

      TO JEREMY AND DAVID

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      MY PRIMARY thanks go to my father, Herman Stock, and to my late mother, Doris Stock; to my children, Jeremy and David; and to my sister, Ellen Stern, for their playful participation in most of these activities. I also thank my nieces, nephews, and students for joining in the fun.

      I am grateful to many generous friends, all of whom are extraordinary teachers: Lynn Balzer-Martin, Julia Berry, Jane Healy, Peg Hoenack, Mike Kligerman, Mary Marcoux, Greg Myhr, George Petrides, Karen Strimple, Liz Wilson, and my colleagues at St. Columba’s Nursery School in Washington, D.C.

      In addition, I thank my husband, Alan, for his patience while I confined myself to the tight space in front of the word processor, as well as Lynn Sonberg and Meg Schneider of Skylight Press and Tina Y. Lee of St. Martin’s Press for their editorial assistance.

      INTRODUCTION

      DEAR PARENT,

      You were a kid once.

      Do you remember how it felt to wait in the dentist’s office for your name to be called? Do you remember long car trips over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house, or, worse, long airplane rides? Do you remember rainy afternoons with nothing to do … and being confined to bed with the chicken pox … and having lots of energy to expend in a home that never had enough space?

      Kids haven’t changed. They will always want to burst out of tight spaces. They will always crave experiences like making mud pies, climbing apple trees, and riding bikes until dark. For our modern, urban, supervised children, however, such spontaneous activities are often out of the question.

      When something of value is taken away, something of equal value must take its place. The trick is to find substitutes for old-fashioned activities that will fit kids’ needs and fit into a tight space.

      Helping Kids Get the Experiences They Crave (But Can’t Have)

      What can you do to help kids get the experiences they crave?

      1. First, understand that kids are born with an inner drive to learn. They learn through active participation in the world around them. An example of active participation is playing Ring Around the Rosy. The child who is in the play learns more and has more fun than the passive child who merely watches from the sidelines.

      Active participation depends on children’s ability to use all their senses—not only the familiar senses of vision and hearing, but also the senses that are less familiar because they are hidden inside our bodies. These hidden senses are:

      • the tactile sense (through the skin), providing information about people and objects that we touch or that touch us;

      • the vestibular sense (through the inner ear), telling us about our movement through space, our balance, and our resistance to the force of gravity; and

      • the proprioceptive sense (through muscles and joints), informing us about our body position and what our bodies are doing.

      Think of the child who plays Ring Around the Rosy. She is seeing, listening, holding other children’s hands, moving in a circle, keeping her balance, purposely falling down, and scrambling up again. Touching and being touched, moving and being moved, she is using many senses simultaneously and effectively.

      The efficient employment of all our senses is called sensory integration. Sensory integration is the unconscious process of taking in sensory messages, analyzing them in the central nervous system, and organizing them for use, in order to function smoothly in daily life. To function smoothly—to become competent human beings—kids require a variety of active, multisensory experiences.

      2. Second, unplug the TV and hide the videos. Television and videos provide passive entertainment and rob kids of the chance to learn through doing.

      3. Third, use this book. 101 Activities for Kids in Tight Spaces suggests activities that will satisfy kids’ need to touch, move, play, and think. Some ideas are old standbys. Others I devised—sometimes in desperation and always in cramped quarters—while raising two exuberant boys, teaching hundreds of preschoolers, leading a den of Cub Scouts, organizing elementary school festivities, and running a birthday party business.

      Helping Kids Choose an Activity

      Kids who can read will be able to leaf through this book and make their own selections. Younger children, or those who are not self-starters, may need your suggestions, and for them it is often a good idea to offer two or three ideas.

      You may be surprised by choices that children make. A child’s interest in an activity may be affected by his or her internal personality traits, such as temperament, mood, learning style, perceptions, activity level, and attention span.

      In addition, external factors, such as materials, place, weather, time of day, and company of an adult or friend will affect a kid’s interest. It all depends.

      Occasionally, your kid will choose an activity that just won’t work at that particular moment—like Smash Hit Cookies when you are out of oatmeal. He may be unhappy or resentful, saying something like, I never get to do anything I want to do!

      Turn this potentially tense moment into a teachable moment. First, respond sympathetically: I know it seems unfair. Then, explain briefly why he can’t do the desired activity: We have no oatmeal. Then, ask for suggestions to fix the problem: What should we do so this won’t happen again? Finally, find out what his goal is. If he wants to make something good to eat, suggest Construction Snacks as an alternative. If he just wants to pound his fists, then Oobleck may satisfy his need.

      When kids have calmed down and have regained self-control, usually they will be agreeable to trying something different.

      Helping Kids Get Unstuck

      Some kids, though, will avoid new activities and will stick to one or two favorites. Up to a point, repetitions are fine, because children learn something new each time they practice a familiar action. However, a child who insists on doing the same thing in the same way may need help to get unstuck. A possible solution to this situation is to show your own interest in a novel activity, and your child may cheerfully join in.

      Once you get your kid started, back off and go about your own business. After all, the fun activities are meant to result in your child’s very own work. Some attention, in the form of guidance, can spark a child’s creativity: too much attention, in the form of control, can put a damper on it.

      Talking Positively about Kids’ Creations

      Indeed, providing just the right kind of attention can be challenging. The trick is to speak positively. Talking positively is not always easy, but it is always important, whether you are commenting about your kid’s art project or any other creative effort.

      Here are some guidelines:

      • Say, Tell me about your work. This simple comment invites the child to express herself verbally as well as artistically. The child may say, It’s red, or I used up all the toothpicks, or Here’s the whale, here’s the fish, and here’s the boat. Respond to what the child has said, with observations such as, Yes, I see that you used only red food coloring for your Paper Towel Tie-Dye, or You made a big pile of toothpicks! or I can see that the whale is spouting.

      • If the child can think of nothing to say, you might encourage her with open-ended comments or questions that do not have a yes or no answer. For instance: "I see that this corner of the paper

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