How to Grow Kids’ Heart Skills

Sparkler has thousands of activities that families can use to support the development of their children’s social and emotional skills — starting before babies and born and through age five. All of the activities focused on social and emotional skills are grouped within the Sparkler domain called “heart.” Families can discover these activities in “Play” in their Sparkler app, or you can suggest activities to families using Sparkler’s library. 

Within “heart,” Sparkler has three sub-domains and 8 skills:

• Social: Empathy, Trust

• Emotional: Feelings, Self-Regulation, Identity

• Outlook: Curiosity, Persistence, Independence

• Helping Hand (3+): Draw pictures of helping each other
• Read to a Stuffed Friend (toddler+): Pick out a few books and cuddle up to read with a stuffed toy. 
• Back and Forth (baby): Make sounds back and forth with your baby
• Arm Swing (baby): Hold your baby on your arm and gently swing

•  Shake the Nerves Away: Listen to the song NERVOUS and dance to shake away your nervous feelings.
• Feelings Faces: Can you guess what my expression means I’m feeling? Am I happy or sad, excited or angry? When did you last feel that way?
• Feelings Freeze Dance: Dance to DANCE YOUR FEELINGS. When the music stops, share call out the feeling.
• Peek a Joy (baby): Play Peek a Boo with feelings!
• Playdough Portraits:  Let’s make self portraits — or pictures of ourselves — using playdough! I’ll give you a mirror so you can observe your face while you work.

Outlook Activities: 

•  Look for the Good Things: Do you hear the birds singing this morning? How beautiful! I forgot we got more of my very favorite cereal. I’m so excited! What do you notice?
• Let’s Wonder: Let’s use our imaginations and wonder together. We can take turns sharing our craziest ideas!
• Reach and Grasp: Try to reach out and touch it or grasp your toys.
• Dinosaur Egg Hunt: Let’s go on a dinosaur egg hunt. How many eggs can you find? How many baby dinos do you think are going to be born?