Earth Day
April 21, 2022 by Admin 0 Comments

Celebrate the Earth

Every year, we celebrate the Earth on April 22. Find some fun Sparkler activities to help young children learn about — and celebrate — our planet! 

Providers can search for these activities in the Library on Sparkler’s dashboard and share with families. Families can browse through Play to find them independently. 

Exploring Nature: Go outside to look for objects from nature.

Trash Masterpiece: Many famous artists create art from trash — bottle caps, car parts, paper tubes, and old magazines. Create a piece of art from things in our trash cans and recycling. 

Repeating Recycling: Create a pattern from objects you find in the recycling (like bottle – can – bottle – can). Guess what the pattern is!

Paint Nature: Go outside and look at nature. Talk about the colors and shapes that you see. Bring something you find home to to inspire a painting!

Nature Collage: Collect objects from outside and then use them to make self portraits.

Sunset Stroll: Take a walk at sunset.

Grow Garden, Grow! Act out different types of weather and what it does to plants.

Home Gardener: Sprout kitchen veggies and see what will grow. 

Appreciate the Earth: Take a nature walk with your baby.

Earth Explorer: Go to the park and make a nature obstacle course.

Musical Weather: Make weather sounds with your body. 

Heart
April 20, 2022 by Admin 0 Comments

Grow Big Hearts with Sparkler

Sparkler helps parents and caregivers support their children’s healthy early development through play and everyday engagement.  We call the four domains HEART, WORDS, MIND, and BODY. What do we mean by “heart” and what types of resources can you access through Sparkler to help children grow big hearts? 

What is "Heart" in Sparkler?

“Heart” in Sparkler encompasses three main areas: 

  1. Emotional skills (identity, feelings, and self-regulation)
  2. Social skills (trust and empathy)
  3. Outlook (curiosity and persistence)

By exploring these big ideas through playful activities and interactions, children learn to understand themselves and relate to others, manage their own emotions and solve problems by working with others. Working on these skills early makes everything else possible — helping to boost academic achievement many other long-term outcomes. 

Parent Tips Related to Heart

Parents can browse through Tips for Adults in the app to find tips related to social and emotional learning — and YOU, as a provider, can suggest a particular unit to a parent who has a concern or question about a topic through the Library tab in your dashboard. 

Relevant units include: 

  • Grow Big Hearts: Little Kids, Big Hearts Podcast
  • Kind Kids
  • Heart: Identity
  • Heart: Independence
  • Heart: Feelings
  • Heart: Self-Regulation
  • Heart: Empathy
  • Heart: Trust
  • Heart: Curiosity
  • Heart: Persistence
  • Family Traditions
  • Teaching Consent
  • Bedtime
  • Stress
  • Upstanding
  • Let’s Talk About Race
  • Growing Gratitude
  • Book List: Diversity and Inclusion
  • Book List: LGBTQ+ Pride

Play Activities Related to Heart

Parents can browse through Play cards in the app to find fun prompts for playtime activities that will support social and emotional learning — and YOU, as a provider, can suggest a particular play card to a parent who has a concern or question about a topic through the Library tab in your dashboard. 

Here are a few of the available activities by skill:

Identity
  • A Poem about YOU (Littles) 
  • Big Dreams (Littles) 
  • Community Colors (Toddlers & Littles)
  • Face Time (Baby)
Feelings
  • Animal Feelings and Farm Animal Feelings (Littles) 
  • Little Miss Muffet (Toddlers & Littles) 
  • I Love You! (Baby)
  • Bear Hug (Baby)
Self-Regulation
  • DIY Hourglass (Littles) 
  • Feel Your Heart (Littles)
  • Animal Stop and Go (Toddlers & Littles)
  • Bug Hunt (Toddlers & Littles)
Trust
  • Run From the Wolf! (Littles) 
  • One Line, Two Hands (Toddlers & Littles) 
  • Here’s the Plan (Baby)
  • Baby Talk (Baby)
Empathy
  • Big Rescue (Toddlers & Littles) 
  • Feelings Wand (Littles) 
  • Copycat (Baby)
Curiosity
  • Big Rescue (Toddlers & Littles) 
  • Feelings Wand (Littles) 
  • Copycat (Baby)
Persistence
  • Butterfly Dance (Toddlers & Littles) 
  • Find Things That Go (Toddlers & Littles) 
  • Ice Rescue (Toddlers & Littles)