Sponge activities are there to soak up the

extra time that is left in class. As a

substitute teacher, these are
particularly useful if there is not
enough to do on the lesson plan. Each
one of these activities can be adjusted
based on the grade you teach.
Sponge activities are activities that fill class time and help the lesson's information seep
into the students' brains. They are a good way to get students to interact with one another
and help them learn. Sponge activities typically can be tailored to any subject matter.
Whether your high school science lesson was on physics or chemistry, you can develop a
sponge activity to help your class retain the information.

Read more: High School Science Sponge Activities | eHow.com

http://www.ehow.com/way_5392983_high-school-science-sponge-
activities.html#ixzz169NZHGeT

Here are some activities you can have students do before the bell rings, while they are
waiting for others to finish, during in-between times, and some of these will even work
while students are standing in line for lunch or special classes!

As quickly as you can, name:

• gems or precious stones • cities or towns in (state)

• teachers at this school • countries of the world

• states • things made of cloth

• kinds of flowers • movie stars

• kinds of ice cream • breeds of dogs

• U.S. presidents • foods that are alphabetical

 • colors
• holidays
• models of cars

1. Bottle Cap Games for Kindergarten

Readiness ( Maths )
Wondering what to do with all those plastic bottle caps? Don't throw them out - reuse
them! Plastic bottle caps are not recyclable and oftentimes they end up being eaten by
sea-life (with fatal results).

Those plastic caps can become simple tools to help your preschooler with essential skills
for kindergarten: including fine motor, counting, categorizing and learning the alphabet.
These activities work well with a starting base of around 200 caps. It may sound like a lot
but if you leave a container on your kitchen counter to "catch the caps" they will add up
quickly!

What You Need:

• Assortment of plastic bottle caps in a variety of colors, around 200

• 2 small sheets of poster board
• Glue
• Sharpie marker

What You Do:

1. First off, look at your assortment of caps. If you have caps of many different
colors, pull out one cap of each color and set them aside. These will be used to
help your child categorize and learn all the different colors.
2. Think of about 10 fun symbols that you can draw on the cap: a star, a smiley face,
a sun, a moon, a heart, a diamond, a triangle, a peace sign, or come up with your
own!
3. Then draw the symbols on each cap. Make three sets, so there are three caps with
the same symbol.
4. Next, make a bigger set of "alphabet" caps to help your child learn her letters.
5. Write a letter of the alphabet on each cap . Make two or three caps for common
letters such as A, E, I, O, U, C, D, H, L, N, R, S, T.
 6. Now, make a set of number caps. Write the number 1 on one cap, the number 2 on
two caps, the number 3 on three caps etc... up to ten.

Once you have your caps ready, it's time to play! Here are some ideas for using your caps
to learn with your child (but be sure to incorporate free play with the caps, too: you and
your child may find some other great activities of your own):

2. Make a Mixed Up Animal Collage

Mix it up and match it up! An elephant-alligator? A zebra-giraffe? This imaginative
project for preschoolers combines sorting skills, shape recognition, scientific exploration,
and the visual arts into one fun activity. Additionally, this activity will help your young
child to better understand basic math skills such as the part-to-whole relationship.

This mixed up animal collage will encourage your child to create unique combination
animals with attributes that are all their own. This project can be as basic or as
imaginative as your child makes it. The materials suggested will give you a start, but try
searching your house for festive animal embellishments to make this activity even more
creative.

What You Need:

• Construction paper sheets

• Shapes cut from construction paper (use a variety of colors and sizes)
• Glue
• Crayons, markers, or tempera paints
• Optional: craft feathers, felt, foam, sequins, fabric scraps, tissue paper, textured
paper or any other decorations your child may like

What to Do:

1. Start by cutting a variety of shapes from the construction paper. You and your
child can do this together, cutting as many different kinds of shapes as you like.
2. Show your child a few pictures of animals or read a book with her that has animal
illustrations. Ask questions such as, “What shapes can you find in that animal?”
or, “Can you find a triangle in the picture of a cat?”.
3. Place the paper shapes on a table or other suitable work surface. Have your child
choose shapes that look like parts from different animals. For example, rectangle
horse legs, an oval pig body, a circle dog head, a triangle for a cat nose and
squares for elephant ears.
 4. Ask your child to arrange the individual shapes into a mixed up animal. You can
explain to her that it is like putting together a puzzle. She can make whatever
kind of mixed up animal she likes. She can even name it!
5. Then have your child glue the shapes onto a piece of construction paper to create
the animal collage. Explain to her what a collage is - you can simply say that it
means to glue different things onto a surface to make one whole picture out of
many different parts.
6. Invite your child to add embellishments to her mixed up animal. Any multitude of
materials can be used. If your preschooler loves to paint, try tempera paints and a
thin brush. If she enjoys crayons, give her an assortment of colors. Other ideas
include craft feathers glued onto the paper as wings, fabric or felt to add texture,
or crumbled tissue paper as fur.

Try doing this project many times. Each time ask your child to combine new and
different animals to make her mixed up collage. Have her create a name for the new
mixed up animal and decide where it might live, what sound it makes, and what it would
eat.

3. Make a Tissue Paper Turkey ( art )

Can you guess how many turkeys Americans cook and eat during the Thanksgiving
holiday? More than 45 million! In preparation for Turkey Day, create an adorable, non-
edible turkey decked out with colorful bursts of tissue paper that pop off the page. This
fluffy gobbler is a three-dimensional twist on the classic handprint turkey, and looks great
gracing a wall, refrigerator, or even the dinner table (just kidding).

What You Need:

• Paper
• Pencil with eraser tip
• Glue stick
• Tissue paper in various colors, cut into 2" squares

What You Do:

1. Place your child’s hand flat in the center of the paper. Trace completely around
your child’s hand to form the body and feathers of the turkey.
2. Invite her to choose a color to start with. Place the eraser end of the pencil in the
center of a tissue paper square and scrunch the tissue paper up around it.
3. Keeping the tissue paper on the pencil, rub a little glue onto it and attach it to the
turkey's body, using the pencil to press the tissue paper down onto the paper.
 4. Next lift the pencil away from the paper.
5. Repeat this process until the turkey is fully covered with tissue paper “feathers.”
6. Once the glue has dried, encourage your child to give her turkey more personality
by drawing other body parts such as eyes, legs, and a beak.

4. Make Egg Carton Spiders

keletons, witches, ghosts … it’s that spooky time of year! Get into the Halloween spirit
by creating some creepy (but cute) spiders using paper egg cartons, a dab of paint, and a
few pipe cleaners. Cutting, painting, and decorating encourage growing creativity and
develop fine motor skills. The spiders make adorable wall and table decorations, or a fun
craft activity for a party or classroom.

What You Need:

• Paper egg carton

• Scissors
• Pipe cleaners
• Paint

What You Do:

1. Help your child cut out one of the sections from the egg carton to form the body
of the spider.
2. Place the cut-out section on your workspace with the outside part facing up. Invite
your child to paint it.
3. When the paint is dry, help her poke four small holes on each side. Insert a 3-4
inch length of pipe cleaner in each one and fold down on the inside to secure.
4. Bend each pipe cleaner leg in the middle to form spider-like legs.
5. Encourage her to draw or paint other details on the spider, such as eyes or spots.

For a spooktacular display, make several spiders and arrange them on a “web” of yarn or
thinly stretched cotton. Hang the web on a wall or the front door to spook incoming
guests and trick-or-treaters.

5. Reward Good Behavior with a Crown

( social studies )
Everyone's kid can be a little monster sometimes. To encourage your preschooler's more
angelic side, try crafting this glamorous crown for him. If he's good, reward him by
letting him be "king" for the afternoon. He'll be an expert at demonstrating good behavior
in no time. It makes a great accessory to wear on birthdays, too!

What You Need:

• A tape measure (flexible enough to wrap around your child's head)

• Thin cardboard, such as posterboard
• A pencil
• Glue
• Large paperclips
• Gold or silver spray paint
• Plastic jewels
• Optional: posterboard, gold star stickers

What to Do:

1. Measure the circumference of your child's head using the tape measure.
2. Sketch a flattened crown shape on the posterboard, making it three inches longer
than the circumference measurement.
3. Cut the crown shape out of the posterboard.
4. Measure 1.5" on each end of the crown. Overlap the ends, glue them together, and
hold them in place with paper clips as the glue dries. (Note: you can skip steps 1-4
by using an inexpensive paper crown from party supply stores.)
5. Remove the paper clips, take the crown outside, and lay out newspapers to avoid a
mess.
6. Spray the crown with gold or silver spray paint. Be sure to cover the entire crown!
Leave it to dry.
7. Once it's dry, invite your child to glue plastic jewels to the crown. Then try it on
for size!
8. Next time he says, "Thank you" or cleans his room without being asked (or
without complaining) award him with the crown. When he behaves badly, remind
him that he won't get to wear his crown until he's good. If desired, you can keep
track of how many times he's good in one week using gold star stickers and a
posterboard. If he gets 10 stars in one week, let him wear the crown for an entire
day. It's sure to teach good behavior in no time!

6. Play the Traffic Sign Game

“Stop”. “Yield”. “One Way”. These are just a few of the signs that children see almost
every day when driving in the car with mom or dad. Young children have not yet learned,
or are just beginning to learn, how to read these sorts of words, but most are innately
curious about what those colorful signs mean.

Use the mystique of the common road sign to your advantage, by creating a game with
hidden learning opportunities. Children will love to play grown-up by “driving”, just like
mom and dad. As you help them create traffic signs you can subtly help them learn by
explaining the individual letters, how they create each word, and what it means.

What You Need:

• Bikes
• Paper
• Markers

What You Do:

License Plates: Cut pieces of poster board the same size as license plates. Then pull out
an atlas or U.S. map and point out some possibilities. Use this as an opportunity to talk
about the differences between our country's regions. Once your children have chosen a
state, you can look online for a picture of its license plate, or just set them free to create
their own design!

Traffic Signs: Make a few traffic signs, such as caution, stop, one way, pedestrian
crossing, and yield. Leave a few blank pieces of paper and ask your kids to create a new
kind of traffic sign from their imaginations. Maybe when their sign is held up, all drivers
must turn left immediately, or maybe it's a sign that means speed up, rather than slow
down...

Driver's Licenses: Make your little drivers official, by cutting paper or cardstock into
small rectangles and writing “Driver's License” at the top. On the left-hand side, write
“Name,” “Age” and “Birthday.” Then draw a small oval shape on the right side and ask
your kids to create their own picture. Make enough copies so that each child has one.

7. Make Frog Feet Sponge Prints

( Science )
Frogs are intriguing creatures, especially for curious young learners. Even without a frog
taking on human characteristics, such as the main character in The Frog Prince, they are
cool creatures all on their own. They are the best jumpers of all vertebrate species
(animals with spines), and their webbed feet make them excellent swimmers as well!

This activity will have your child hopping frog footprints all over her paper. She can use
her prints to decorate cards or drawings, or even to create homemade wrapping paper!
This is also a great time to share some fun frog facts with kids, and learn a little froggy
science along the way.
What You Need:

• Sponge
• Scissors
• Washable paint, such as finger paint
• Finger paint paper or newsprint paper
• Plastic bowls (plastic butter containers work great)

What You Do:

1. Cut out a frog footprint from the sponge. Start with 3 webbed toes then make the
rest of the stamp oval shaped.
2. Put the paint into plastic bowls, one bowl for each color that your child will be
using.
3. Show your child how to use the sponge to stamp frog prints onto the paper. Wash
the sponge out to change colors. Alternately, if you want to make multiple stamps,
cut one stamp for each color you will be using.
4. Hang your artwork up to dry.

Did You Know?

• Almost all frogs live partially on land and in the water.

• Frogs are able to absorb water and oxygen directly through their skin. This makes
them highly susceptible to pollution which may contribute to their declining
numbers.
• Baby frogs live in the water as tadpoles.
• These amphibians croak for different reasons but each species (kind) has a unique
voice. Some frogs can be heard up to a mile away.

8. Learn Gravity with Parachute People

( Science )
all to the ground? Here's a fun and safe activity that won't break any household items but
offers your child that naughty satisfaction by using a homemade parachuting toy! She'll
have so much fun, she won't realize you're sneaking in a mini science lesson. For
generations this activity has been a hit, and now you can see why!

What You Need:

• Lightweight plastic figurines (toy soldiers, dinosaurs, or any small, lightweight

figurine will work.)
• A handkerchief or bandana
• A needle
• Thread (any color)
 • Optional: permanent marker

What to Do:

1. This step is for parents only! Use a sharp object to poke a small hole in each
corner of the handkerchief. You can use scissors, a hole-punch, a metal skewer,
etc. Just be careful not to poke yourself in the process!
2. Cut four equal lengths of thread, and help your child tie one end of each thread
tightly to each corner of the handkerchief. Tie the other ends to the figurine, two around
each arm or all four around the waist. Knot the ends tightly--you don't want the figurine to
fall off on his journey down!
3. If desired, invite your child to decorate the "parachute" with a marker.
4. Go to the top of a balcony or stair case landing and encourage your child to drop
the parachuting figurine. Once it lands, fetch it and try it again with a figurine that
doesn't have a parachute and compare the falling speeds. Ask your child why she
thinks the parachute makes you fall slower.
5. Take turns tossing it down, or make a second one and have a race to see which
parachute lands first!

9. Make a Marble Obstacle Course

( Circle )
If you're like most families with preschoolers, you probably have a lot of marbles around
your house. With a few simple household items you can use marbles to teach your child
about simple science concepts like gravity, speed, weight, and balance. Kids will love to
build an obstacle course for their marbles and experiment with different designs and
configurations. Plus, they'll be having fun while practicing fine motor skills..

What You Need:

• 4 empty cardboard paper towel rolls

• Scissors
• Ruler
• Pen
• Stickers, markers or crayons (optional)
• Tape (duct, packing or masking works best)
• Marbles
• Small toys that do not roll
• Blocks

What to Do:
 1. Prepare to connect your paper towel tubes by cutting out a small section on the
end of three of the tube. Measure a 1½ inch by 1½ inch square. Show your child
how to use the ruler and talk to her about how to measure.
2. Cut out the square on the paper towel roll and recycle the scrap of cardboard.The
empty space in the tube will allow a marble to pass through.
3. Have your child decorate the paper towel rolls with stickers, markers or crayons.
Using a glue stick to wrap colorful tissue paper around the tubes is another quick
way to decorate them.
4. When your child is finished decorating the tubes, show her how to put them
together to make a simple marble run. Lay one paper towel roll in front of you
with the cut out end on the right. Turn the tube so that the cut out square is on the
top. Take another tube and place the end that doesn’t have the cut out in the first
tube. The tubes should overlap and form a 90 degree angle.
5. Take the third tube and place the end without the cutout into the end of the second
tube with the cutout square. Make a 90 degree angle with the tubes. You can
either have the tubes make a backwards S or a U shape. You may need to turn the
tube to get the cut out are on the correct side.
6. Tape the tubes together so that the marbles will not escape from the tubes. Try to
leave a little bit of slack in the tube so that the child can adjust the angle of the
tubes.
7. Ready to roll? Lay the tubes flat on the ground and put a marble in an open tube.
Ask her if the marble moves and why she thinks that it stay still. Tell her that you
are going to make a marble run so that the marble will move through the tubes.
8. Have your child stack a tower of three blocks on the floor. It works best if she
lays the blocks flat for stability. Show her how to put one end of the marble run
on the top of the blocks. At the first joint in the marble run, have her place 2
blocks underneath and put the tube on the blocks. At the second joint in the
marble run, have her place one block to support the tube on the blocks.
9. Time to get rolling! Show her how to put a marble in the first tube and watch how
it moves through the marble run.You and your child may have to experiment with
the angle of the joints and the height of the blocks to get the marble to roll
through successfully. Ask her why she thinks that the marble moved through the
run that was on the blocks but the marble in the in flat tube did not move.
10. Have her put a small square shaped toy (such as a Lego) in the first run and
observe what happens. Ask he why she thinks that the toy did not move through
the run like the marble did?
11. Let your child experiment with different arrangements of blocks and types of
toys. Have her place small toys in the tube and then try to run a marble through it.
What happens? Why?

When you are done with the activity, put the marble run in a safe place. Bring it out
another day for you and your child to play with again. You can also add more tubes to the
run for a more extensive project.

10. Count Your Cupcakes ( Circle )

ind math in the kitchen with a cupcake counting exercise! Kids sort and decorate
cupcakes while using math words like "set" and "unit." This creative activity blends
open-ended art with counting, matching and sorting, skills kids will use later for
academic math. Let the cupcake counting begin!

What You Need:

• 6 baked cupcakes
• 6 saucers
• 6 doilies
• 6 candles
• 7 ounces marzipan
• Food coloring

What You Do:

1. Bake the cupcakes in advance. Fill the cupcake tins only halfway full of dough so
the tops will be flat. Allow to cool.
2. Now, mix the marzipan modeling dough. Working on wax paper, divide marzipan
into as many portions as colors you want to use. Show your child how to squish
marzipan flat between her palms, add color to the center, then fold up the edges
and squeeze. Have her keep squishing until color is even. For deeper color, add
two drops and knead some more. She'll need to wash and dry her hands between
colors.
3. She can now sculpt with the marzipan — no special instructions needed! She can
make animals, shapes, flowers, anything she can imagine. Later, she'll pick six of
her creations to be cupcake toppers.
4. While she's sculpting, set up the matching activity on a long table or counter.
Arrange the sets so like units are together (all six cupcakes on one plate, all six
saucers in one stack, all six candles in one cup, etc.)
5. Have her choose six toppers and ask if she can help you see if there are six "units"
in the other "sets." Name sets and count units together: "The saucer set has: one,
two..." (Is your child an accomplished counter? She'll be delighted if you have
"forgotten" a saucer or "accidentally" included extra candles. Let her correct the
units!)
6. With counts confirmed, reorganize old sets into new sets: cupcake sets! Have her
hand you one saucer, one doily, etc., while explaining that a cupcake set needs
one of each unit.
7. After each cupcake set is organized, encourage her to arrange each set in the way
she likes.
8. If she wants to keep going, have her break down the sets again. Can she sort
everything so that like units are back together?

Allow her to sort and count as much as she likes, then let her enjoy her cupcake treat at
the end. After all that counting, sorting, and matching, she's earned it!
11. MUSICAL SHAKERS ( Music )

Submitted by: Ann Newton - parent, teacher & artist, Connolly Primary School, Perth, Western
Australia

WHAT YOU NEED:

• Small plastic drink bottles

• Bright coloured paints
• Paintbrushes
• Rice, pasta, sand etc.

WHAT YOU DO:

1. Children paint their drink bottle, by holding upside down with their hand on the lid.
2. Encourage children to cover the whole bottle with different coloured paints.
3. When dry, these can be filled with rice/uncooked pasta/coloured sand etc. A varietyof
materials is recommended as this gives a variety of sounds.
4. These can then be used as musical instruments during music/movement activities

12. PAINTING WITH MUSIC

Submitted by: Marianne Sy-Quimsiam, a teacher at the Child Enrichment Centre and Reading
Laboratory in Marikina City.

Objectives:
Painting with music: enhances self-expression, exploration in use of colors and develops
memory recall of events, people, and feelings.

What You Need:

• diluted tempera paints (in various colors)in small plastic jars

• 2 chinese brushes for every color
• drawing paper
• various music types (e.g. classical, techno or modern, ballads, country or folk,
instrumental, etc...)
• cassette player

What You Do:

1. During circle time, explain to the children how music makes us feel. Encourage questions
and answers about feelings and feelings expressed by music or songs. Site a favorite
song of the class as an example.
2. When ready with the materials, play music number 1. Allow them to use their desired
colors and make images they remember.
3. Stop the tape and tell them to write number 1 on their paper.
4. Have that paper dry while you go on with the next music.
 5. After the activity, ask them how they felt about painting with music.
6. When their paintings are dry, compare their paintings and ask them about their feelings.

13. REATIVE FUN WITH STORIES ( Language-literature )

WHAT YOU NEED:

• Imagination
• Paper
• Markers or crayons

WHAT YOU DO:

• Make up a pretend story and have the children help you with it.
• Take turns coming up with a line in the story.
• Start off with a question or two:
• I am a butterfly, what color am I?
• How far can I fly?
• Where do I live?
• What kind of house do I live in?
• Hand out sheets of paper and let your kinder artists fill the page with color and shapes as
they put their stories down on paper.
• Some other ideas:
• You are going on a trip ...
• Where are you going?
• How will you get there?
• Who will you meet there?
• What will you do?

14. CREATIVE FUN WITH FOOD ( Fine Motor )

What You Need:

• Bowls or other containers

• Dried peas
• Dried lentils
• Dried kidney beans
• Macaroni
• Dried beans
• Sunflower seeds

What You Do:

1. Let the children pick up the bits of food using their hands or wooden spoons.
2. Mix and mess the foods together in different bowls.
3. Children will enjoy the feel of the dried foods and they will love the different colors they
see.
4. This can be a make-believe cooking session for the little ones.
15. FUN COLLECTING, SORTING AND PAINTING ( Fine/Gross Motor )
WHAT YOU NEED:

• Small rocks
• Buttons
• Twigs
• Water-Based paint
• Paintbrushes
• Water and water containers
• Paint smocks or old shirts
• A covered work area
• Egg cartons
• Magic markers

WHAT YOU DO:

• Have children sort the rocks and buttons into sizes, shapes and colors.
• The children can use an egg carton each to sort.
• Next, the children can give each of the rocks a name or they can decide if the rocks or
buttons are animals or creatures.
• Kinder artists can then paint the rocks or buttons or use a magic marker to give them
color.
• If you are feeling adventurous, bring out the glue and let your children glue rocks and
buttons together to make creatures.

16. Football ( Gross Motor )

What you need:
What you do :
Play with a large ball. Encourage your child to kick the ball, using one foot and then
the other. Then throw and catch it too.
17. Transition Activities

Transitions occur throughout our lives. They can be as mundane as needing to find an
alternative route to school when a road is under construction or having to select
something else to eat for lunch when the cafeteria takes our favorite food off the menu.
Transitions also can be life-altering events, such as divorce, a death in the family, or
moving to a different home.

As adults, we have lots of experience with transitions and we often move from one place
or activity to another without consciously thinking about it. Throughout our lifespan, we
have learned ways to handle each new change and expectation as it arises. We draw upon
our past experiences to guide us with our new encounters; when we cannot figure things
out on our own, we look to others for assistance. Children, on the other hand, have much
less experience with transitions. More often than not, they need additional guidance and
support from adults to help them figure out what they are supposed to do as well as when
and how they are supposed to do it. This is particularly true for students who are
vulnerable for failure in the early grades (Stormont, Espinoza, Knipping, & McCathren,
2003). When teachers successfully guide and support students as they transition from one
activity or place to another, benefits (or treasures) abound for everyone in the classroom.

Transition activities can be considered "indirect guidance" tools, because they help
students change their attention and focus from one activity to another while ensuring that
all students have a safe and successful classroom experience (Marion, 2003). Transition
activities also can function as playful teaching strategies (Kieff & Casbergue, 2000). An
example of this in a preschool or primary classroom would be to sing songs to help
children transition from sitting on the rug to doing another activity, such as going to
centers or washing their hands for lunch. Music is enjoyable for young children; thus, the
skills and concepts presented through musical activities have the capacity to not only
engage students but also motivate and enhance learning on multiple levels (Press, 2006).

Creating Transition Activities That Work for You

18. Sensory activities for preschoolers

Sensory Activities for Young Children

Centers

Every activity a child undertakes becomes a sensory experience for them in some way.
We all learn though our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, but many adults
have learned too well to ignore most sensory experiences.
It is a teacher's duty and delight to provide sensory experiences for young children,
especially those kinds of experiences that can lead to a more generalized understanding.
Dropping marbles into a bowl of flour to create craters and thus model meteor impacts
can be a valuable and enjoyable experience for children when they look up at the moon
and see craters, they understand much more about how those craters were made.

In a preschool setting, centers can be planned according to developmental purpose:

exposure to stories and books, art, music, science, math, dramatic play, gross motor, fine
motor, computer literacy, and so on. But teachers should also plan their centers for the
primary sense used in an exploration: sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. What follows
are some suggestions organized according to sense.

ACTIVITIES EMPHASIZING THE SENSE OF SIGHT:

1. Set out magnifying lenses, and a variety of objects, like pictures, leaves, rocks, old
shoes, fabrics, fruit, vegetables, crackers, etc. Let children study them with the lenses in a
well-lit area.
2. Get colored translucent plastic squares in red, yellow and green. Let children gaze at
light sources through the plastic one at a time, then two at a time, then all three at a time.
Let them tell you what they see. Then let them look at pictures and books through the
colored plastic.
3. Set out flashlights, and provide a tented area to dim lighting.
4. If children are not frightened by the dark, turn out all the lights in your room, darken
the windows as much as possible, and sit and have a few moments to talk quietly in the
dark. Hold hands and whisper or sing soft songs together.
5. Again, for those children who are ready, use a large handkerchief to blindfold one or
two children at a time, and let them crawl (slowly!) around the room, trying to find their
way without seeing.

ACTIVITIES EMPHASIZING THE SENSE OF HEARING:

1. Allow children to listen to stories on tape or CD.
2. Play "Statues" with a musical tape or CD. Have the children move to the music and
"freeze like a statue" when you hit the pause button.
3. Play a hand drum with a slow, steady beat, and then gradually speed up the tempo,
while children march to the beat.
4. Set out sturdy musical

Animals Movements
19. . Ask your child to imitate the movement of different animals: creep like a snake,
waddle like a duck, hop like a rabbit etc.

20. Clock Race Math Game

Clock Race

You will need

12 sheets of paper
a large space

Instructions

1.Write the numbers 1-12 on the pieces of paper. They should be large enough to be read
at a distance.

2.Lay them out in a circle on the floor in the shape of a giant clock-face.

3.Call out times ( on the hour only).

4.The children must run and stand on the correct piece of paper.

Variation - Call out activities that you do at different times of the day e.g. lunchtime,
bathtime, etc.

Skills - recognizing the numbers 1-12, recognizing positions of numbers on the clock
face.