playing Archives - Sparkler

Play Activities

November 11, 2022 by Admin 0 Comments

Featured Gratitude Sparkler Content

It’s time for pumpkins, apples, falling leaves — and saying “Thank you!”

How can families learn about saying “Thanks” as we approach Thanksgiving?

Sparkler offers families tips for parents as well as 2,000+ off-screen play-based learning activities, organized by themes and skills. Each Sparkler activity is designed to inspire active learning through play, because children learn best when they are free to explore, experiment, and engage their whole bodies.

We regularly share lists of featured activities with our program partners to help you identify activities you might want to share with families via our Library (or use in your classrooms) to promote development. This month, we are highlighting Thanksgiving and gratitude activities! Providers who are using Sparkler can find and share these activities directly from the Library tab in your Sparkler dashboard.

Tips for Parents

Growing Gratitude

November is Gratitude Month! The Tip for Adults titled “Growing Gratitude” offers parents these five tips to help their child develop Gratitude and Kindness.

Try saying, “Thank You” instead of, “Good Job” to their child.
Make giving a habit and talk about how their tiny acts of generosity impact others.
Modeling gratitude by saying, “Thank you” to your neighborhood helpers.
Less is more: donate or put excess toys out of sight for a while.
Say “No” or “Not Today” to their child sometimes.

Read more in the app! You can find and share this parenting tip under the Library tab on the provider dashboard.

Featured Play Activities

G-G-Grateful Song (all ages)

I’m thankful for the trees and for our home … and for YOU! What are you thankful for?

Let’s use the track for “G-G-Grateful” to compose our own Thanksgiving song about the people, places, and things we’re grateful for.
Let’s sing it together to share what we’re thankful for!

Cornbread Chef (18 months – 5 years old)

Cornbread is a food that some families share on Thanksgiving. Let’s bake our own together. Let’s preheat the oven to 400ºF degrees. Now, let’s work together to measure and mix all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl: 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp baking powder, 4 tsp sugar.

Now let’s work together to measure and mix the wet ingredients: 1 egg, 1 cup milk, ¼ cup oil or melted butter. Then let’s mix wet and dry together. Finally, let’s mix in 1 cup of corn kernels.

Let’s pour the batter into a greased baking pan and I’ll put it into the oven for 20-25 minutes (15-20 minutes for muffins). Let’s share our cornbread!

Who Needs It? (for children 18 months – 5 years)

Let’s look through our home for items to donate to someone else. We can look in the closet, in your toy bin, and on the bookshelf. (Toddlers can simply drop donations into a box!)

Let’s sort our items into two categories: items to keep and use and items to donate for someone else to use.
When we’re done, let’s count the number of items to donate. Let’s deliver the items to a local charity!

Play Activities

October 12, 2022 by Admin 0 Comments

Fall Featured Sparkler Content

It’s time for pumpkins, apples, and falling leaves! How can families learn through play during this special time of year?

Sparkler offers families 2,000+ off-screen play-based learning activities, organized by themes and skills. Each Sparkler activity is designed to inspire active learning through play, because children learn best when they are free to explore, experiment, and engage their whole bodies.

We regularly share lists of featured activities with our program partners to help you identify activities you might want to share with families via our Library (or use in your classrooms) to promote development. This month, we are highlighting activities that celebrate autumn! You can find and share these activities directly from the Library tab in your Sparkler dashboard.

Fall Walk (for babies 0-18 months)

Let’s go on a walk outside and look for signs of fall!

The air feels cooler! The sun is rising later in the morning! Birds and butterflies are migrating south! The leaves are starting to change from green to brown, orange, yellow, and red! Acorns and leaves are falling off the trees! Let’s see if we can spot any squirrels eating acorns and getting ready to hibernate for winter!

How many signs of fall can we spot as we walk around outside together?

Leaf Creatures (for toddlers 18-36 months)

Let’s find fall leaves outside or make some out of paper!

Let’s pretend that our leaves are leaf creatures! Let’s use markers, paint, or stickers to make faces on our leaves.

Let’s play with our leaf creatures! What should we name them?

Pumpkin Spice Dough (for children 18 months – 5 years)

It’s pumpkin season! Let’s make some pumpkin spice dough to play with and smell!

Let’s mix one 15 oz. can of pumpkin purée with 2 cups of corn starch. If it’s still sticky, we can add more cornstarch until the dough forms. Let’s sprinkle some pumpkin spice into our dough.

Let’s poke, squish, and squeeze our dough. Let’s roll the dough into balls like little pumpkins. We can add rolling pins, cookie cutters, plastic animals, or anything else that you like!

Spooky Season

In addition to the featured play activities, we have a special parent tips unit called Spooky Season, which offers tips on how parents/caregivers can keep kids feeling safe and secure, even during this sometimes spooky time of year.