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Allegany County Imagination Library

March 2022 Fun Book Activities and Curriculum

Group 1
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WHEN CAN YOUR BABY PLAY PAT-A-CAKE?
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By month 3, many babies are able to bring their hands together in a clapping motion. With your help, your infant can build on this exciting small motor skill, combining clapping with other hand movements like rolling and patting. However, many babies won't be able to play patty-cake on their own until 12 months.
ACTIVITIES FOR YOUR BABY

Who knew a little rhyme could do so much? Patty-cake and other sweet finger games are great tools to build small motor skills and boost language.

​As your baby grows, give her lots of opportunities to practice patty-cake. Almost any time baby is awake and alert is a good moment to play this type of finger game. The more practice she gets with games that combine visual development, fine motor skills and social interaction, the better. 

HOW TO PLAY PAT-A-CAKE
Need a refresher course on the lyrics? Here you go:
"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man!
Bake me a cake as fast as you can."
Help your child "pat" and "roll" as you continue:
"Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with a B."

Touch baby's face and then your own as you finish:
"And bake it in the oven for baby and me!"
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You can warm up to finger games by offering toys with varying textures, shapes and sizes: blocks, balls, activity boards, soft dolls and even objects from around the house like measuring cups and wooden spoons.

OTHER BOOKS TO ENJOY
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For other ideas and tips on playing Pat-A-Cake with your infant, visit:
When Can Babies Play Patty-Cake? - How to Play Patty-Cake With Your Infant (whattoexpect.com)

Pat-A-Cake (thegeniusofplay.org)

Pat-A-Cake Printable Poem and Sequencing Cards - Fun-A-Day!

OTHER SONGS AND GAMES FOR YOU AND YOUR BABY
  • Itsy-Bitsy Spider." Touch your left index finger to your right thumb, then swap back and forth to turn your hands into spiders: "The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the water spout." Now make your fingers into falling rain: "Down came the rain and washed the spider out." Sweep your hands and arms up into a sun shape: "Out came the sun and dried up all the rain." Now back to spider fingers: "And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again." 
  • ​"This Little Piggy." Gently squeeze your baby’s toes when you tell this adorable story, starting with her big toe and moving down the row to her baby one saying: “This little went to market, this little piggy stayed home. This little piggy ate roast beef, but this little piggy had none. And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home.” After the last toe, race your fingers from her foot along her body and up to tickle her chin.
  • "Pop! Goes the Weasel." This classic song is the tune that often plays when you crank the handle of a Jack-in-the-box toy. You can sing it without this springy box using your hands to turn in a circle and then popping them in the air at the end.
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  • "The Wheels on the Bus." How do the wheels on the bus move? Yup — round and round (move your hands in a circle). Next, the people on the bus go up and down (and so does your body). Continue with the babies crying and the driver saying “Move on back,” matching the motions with the song’s lyrics.

Group 2
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Other Farm Animal Books Your Might Enjoy
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Sing-A-Long Songs About Shapes
Playdough Mat Shapes

What you will need:
  • Playdough
  • Shape Mat (PDF)
Step 1.  Print the shape mat by clicking on the link above. If you do not have a printer, create a shape mat by drawing each of the shapes on a piece of paper and writing its name inside. To make the shape mat last longer, you can laminate the page.
Step 2. Have your child use the playdough to outline each shape. Read the name of the shape.  
Step 3. Using cookie cutters in your child's favorite shapes, have your child roll out the play dough and cut the shapes out. Or if you're looking for a fund snack, do the same activity with cookie dough. 
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LEARNING SHAPES
Did you know that helping children learn shapes promotes a strong foundation for both math and literacy? 
Identifying, categorizing, and creating shapes help young children gain mathematical reasoning skills in their early childhood years that will set them up for success later in school. It also builds background knowledge needed for learning the alphabet. (Who knew a triangle or a circle had so much power?!)  
Teaching basic shapes is one of the most fun learning objectives for teachers and parents alike, in part because there are endless ways to do it! You can use anything and everything from wooden blocks to puzzles to magnetic tiles. Simple cutouts from construction paper or felt fabric also work great. If you can imagine it, you can do it. (And your child can, too!) 
Shape Sort
What You Will Need: 
  • Colored Masking Tape

Step 1. Take colored tape and make simple shapes on your floor.  Shape ideas include a square, a circle, a rectangle, and a triangle. You may wish to make one shape or several depending on how well your child knows their shapes. 
Step 2. Help your child search for items and toys around your house that match the shape(s).  
Step 3. Take time to name each shape. Count the number of sides of the shape. Have your child trace the shape with their finger tip. 


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Matching Shapes Game

What you will need:
  • Paper
  • Markers
  • Scissors

Step 1. Draw and color shapes on 3"x5" pieces of paper. Ideas for shapes include a circle, a rectangle, a square, a triangle, a heart, a hexagon, a diamond, and others.
Step 2. Cut the shapes in half. You can cut them diagonally, horizontally, and vertically.
Step 3. Have your child match the shapes to make them whole. Have your child name each shape as they match them. Count the sides of each shape out loud. 
Hand Print Animal Art
Children love to finger paint and this fun activity allows them to use their whole hands. 

What you will need:
  • Non-toxic finger or poster board paint
  • Paper or poster board
  • Paint brush and wet wipes
Step 1. Have a look at some pictures of animals, the colors of paint you have and the shape of your child's hand or feet to see what animals you can try to recreate.
Step 2. Paint your child's hand in the way you want to use it for the handprint. Think about what parts of your hand you want to print and make sure there is lots of paint on it.
Step 3. Press your child's painted hand on the paper. Push down quite firmly and then carefully remove your child's hand from the paper. Wipe your child's hand with a wet wipe.
Step 4. Add extra details by painting fingers, thumbs or fingertips, and press down over the painting. Think about how to add tails, eyes, noses/beaks and ears. Wash your child's hands and think of another animal to create!
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Group 3
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Looking Back

What you will need: 
  • Pictures of your child at different ages and stages

Take out pictures of your child at different ages.  Start with the youngest picture and work your way to the oldest picture.  Talk about ways that he has changed or stayed the same.  Talk about what things he can do now that he could not do then.  Getting bigger is fun and exciting as your child changes and develops. Help them celebrate how they are getting bigger.  If your child has siblings, talk about things they can do verses their siblings and how each child is unique and loved.

Watch Me Grow: Big, Bigger, Biggest
Items you will need:
  • Pictures of animals at different ages and stages; for example one picture of a puppy, one of an adult dog, and one of an elderly dog. You may also use kittens, adult cats, and older adult cats. Or you may choose a calf, an adult cow, and an older adult cow. Use whatever animal your child likes.

Directions:
  1. Print the pictures on separate pieces of paper or cut them out to make three separate pictures. ​Ask your child to put the animals into the correct order; youngest to oldest.
  2. Ask your child to explain why they put the pictures in the order that they did. What clues helped when looking at the animals? 
  3. Explore how the animals changed. What could they do at one stage of their life versus another. 
  4. Talk about how as we grow we can do more thing. 
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Teddy Bear Hide and Seek

What you need:
1 Teddy Bear

Step 1. Have your child pick out his or her favorite teddy bear.
Step 2. While one person closes their eyes and counts to 10, the other person hides the teddy bear. 
Step 3. The person who was counting searches for the teddy bear. To make the game more interactive, the person who hid the teddy bear can give those who are seeking hints. You're cold, or warm, or hot...
Step 4. Once the teddy bear is found, switch places and play teddy bear hide and seek again.
An entertaining and moving tribute to big brothers by the author/illustrator of Meet Me at the Moon and Following Papa's Song. Continuing her picture book stories about family relationships, Gianna Marino introduces Little Giraffe, who adores her big brother. Set in a stunning African landscape, the story begins with a game of hide-and-seek as Little Giraffe looks for her big brother, who's just out of her sight, but always safely nearby. As she asks the many animals she encounters on her search if they've seen him, it's evident how much she admires him. He's taller and faster and braver than her, she tells them. But as the search continues, the other animals insist that Little Giraffe is tall, and fast, and brave, too. . . and best of all, she has a wonderful older brother who looks out for her! 
Other Books to Read about Siblings
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Songs About Growing Up
Giraffe Art Potted Plants

Spring is the perfect time to help your toddler learn about plants and discover how they grow.  Like animals, plants have a lifecycle that a child can experience from the start. 

What you will need:
1 terra cotta pot 
Non-Toxic Yellow paint
Non-Toxic Brown paint
1 seed or small plant
Potting soil

Step 1.  Paint the terra cotta pot yellow and let it dry.
​Step 2. Have your child dip their finger into the brown paint and add finger prints to the yellow terra cotta pot creating a special pattern or art design. A giraffe's spots are like our fingerprints - no two giraffes share the same combination of spots. Let it dry. 
Step 3.  Fill the giraffe planter with potting soil and dig a small hole in the middle for the seed or small plant. Water the plant regularly. 
Step 4.  Monitor your child's plant's growth. Talk about how the plant needs sunlight and water to survive. Ask you child what they need to grow and stay healthy. 



Group 4
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Making Playdough

What You Need for Marshmallow Play Dough:
  • 6 Large Marshmallows
  • 3+ Tbsp of corn starch
  • 2 tsp of coconut oil
  • Food coloring
  • Bowls
  • Spoons
  • Microwave
Directions​: 
  1. Combine all of the ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl, and then heat on high until the marshmallows expand.
  2. This will take roughly 25-30 seconds, but you will want to watch closely.  Kids actually love doing this part.
  3. Carefully remove the bowl from the microwave, and then mix the ingredients as much as you can with a spoon.  Things will be pretty sticky at first, but don't worry.  Just keep mixing.
  4. Once the ingredients are cool enough mix & knead the play dough with clean dry hands, adding more corn starch as needed.
  5. Continue to mix and knead the dough, slowly adding corn starch and kneading until the desired consistency is formed.
  6. Repeat the above steps for each color of marshmallow play dough that you wish to make.  Then, the fun can begin!
Making Clay with Blippi
Playdough Fossils
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Help your little paleontologist discover how time changes our earth leaving behind fossils. 

What you will need:
  • Play Dough
  • Plastic insects, dinosaurs, or other pre-historic animals
  • Magnifying glass
  • Tweezers or Tongs

Step 1. Before your child joins you to play, place the plastic insects, dinosaurs or other pre-historic animals into the play dough. Be sure that the hidden toys are not small enough to be a choking hazard.
Step 2. Explain that as the earth changes, often it leaves clues hidden about what came before. These are called fossils. Have your child use the magnifying glass and tweezers or tongs to search for the fossils in their play dough. 
Play with Clay follows a colorful blob of modeling dough as it forms a ball, rolls into a snake, coils into a pot, and more in this adorable book! In this charming story, children can learn the simple lesson that change is a constant--and they can learn it through art and play!
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How Can Play Dough Help Your Child's Development? 
Fine Motor Skills: This helps in your children’s hands develop the strength, dexterity, and control needed to manipulate everyday items such as scissors, pencils, zippers, and buttons strengthening their pincher grip. 
Socioemotional Skills: Playdough provides a lot of open-ended opportunities for children to experience independent and cooperative play. In both styles of play, children are exploring abilities, life experiences, and emotions. During play with others (either an adult or child) children are learning about cooperation, collaboration, self-control, and friendships. 
Creativity: From dramatic play to initiating and creating whatever your child’s imagination can come up with, playdough is a fantastic outlet. Playdough can be anything! 
Language and Literacy: As children discuss what they are creating or their sensory experiences they are expanding their vocabulary. As you ask your child questions they are learning to listen. There are so many different ways children learn comprehension, listening, and communication skills through playing with playdough. 
Science and Math: Trial and error, creating shapes, comparing sizes – just simply playing with playdough exposes kids to a vast array of math and science concepts.
Sensory Benefits of Play Dough
Hand Strengthening: Squishing, smashing, pushing, pulling, twisting, cutting…all the fun of playdough. Just the basic act of playing with playdough builds those hands muscles. Playdough also comes in a variety of different consistencies some of which require more strength than others to manipulate making it fairly easy to meet individual needs.
Proprioceptive: Pushing in cookie cutters or toys, pulling back a rolling pin, or even just squeezing a very stiff dough all provide deep pressure input for your child’s joints.
Sensorimotor: Ever just sit there and squeeze/roll around a ball of play dough in your hands while your child sat there and played? A lot like a stress ball, play dough is a stress reliever. And this works for your kids too!
Tactile: Everything about playdough at the most basic level is about exploring using the tactile sensory system. From textures to consistencies, to toys and items used, playdough is all about hands-on exploration.
Olfactory: Adding scents to playdough is ridiculously easy and one of our favorite things to do!
Other Fun Reads about Clay and Art
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Road Building

What toddler doesn't love playing with trucks and cars. Roll out as many pieces of Play-Doh as you want to make a road or track. Kids love to press their trucks as they roll them along to create tracks for each other to follow. This will keep them busy for a long time!
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Group 5
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Other Good Reads for Your Little Meteorologist
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Rain Day Sensory Bin
Explore weather with a rain sensory bin. Toddlers and preschoolers will squeeze and pour water, pretending to create a rainfall!

Things You Will Need
  • Plastic cups with small holes in the bottoms using a thumbtack
  • Cotton balls
  • Water
  • A bin to put everything in

Directions:​
  1. Place water in the bin and poke holes into the bottom of the plastic cups. 
  2. Have your child use the plastic cup to pour water in and out of the bin.
  3. Ask your child to fill their cup and watch the water drip out of the bottom. Ask them what does it sound like when it hits the bin. What happens if the holes are different sizes? What happens when you hold the cup low and then high? 
  4. Place the cotton balls into the bin. Tell your child that the cotton balls are like clouds. Allow your toddler to squeeze the water out of the cotton balls as if it is raining. Ask them to squeeze hard and then softly. Does this change the way the water Have them hold up their cup and use the cotton ball to push the water out. Ask them how using the cotton ball changes the flow of the rain. 
Sing-A-Long Songs​
A storm and its sunny aftermath come to life through gorgeous art and lyrical text.

What do you do when the clouds roll in,
When the wind chimes clang and the weather vanes spin?


When stormy skies threaten, people stock up on supplies, bring in their outside toys, and check the news for updates. And during the storm, if the power goes out, they can play games and tell stories by candlelight. But what do animals do? They watch and listen, look for a cozy den or some other sheltered spot, and hunker down to wait. After the storm, while the people are cleaning up their yards, making repairs, and checking on the neighbors, the animals emerge from their hiding places and shake off the rain. And everyone is happy to be out in the sunshine again, grateful for better weather and the company of friends.

Raindrop Gravity Art

What you will need
  • Food Coloring
  • Cotton Balls
  • Eye Droppers
  • School Glue
  • Water
  • Tray
  • Cardstock paper (We used thick paper so it would withstand the water)
  • Easel, clip board, or binder

Directions:

Step 1. Help you child glue cotton balls to the top of their paper.

Step 2. Place the paper on an easel, clip board, or binder and tilt it so the paint will run down towards the bottom of the page.

Step 3. Have your child use the eye dropper to drip paint below their cotton ball clouds. Have them squirt onto the paper instead of into the cotton ball because the cotton ball absorbs the paint and then it takes longer to rain. 

Making it Rain through Body Percussion 
This is a great group activity for preschool classrooms or youth groups.  It’s simple, peaceful, and allows everyone to focus on one common goal. The goal is to create the sound of a rainstorm using only our bodies.  This requires no speaking

Directions:
Step 1.  Ask everyone to sit with you in a circle on the floor.
Step 2.  You will begin an activity, then the child to your right will join in, then the child to his/her right will join in, etc. until it creates a wave all around the circle.  Once it reaches back to you (the leader) you begin a different activity, and this creates a second wave.
Step 3.  Tell the students that they are to carefully copy the movements of the person to their left, and not switch activities until that person switches.  Try to encourage them to not focus on “the leader”, but instead on the person to their left. Begin making rain by:
  • Activity 1:  Rub your hands together.  (This is the wind)
  • Activity 2:  Tap one finger on the palm of your hand.  (These are the first raindrops.)
  • Activity 3:  Tap all 4 fingers.  (Many more rain drops.)
  • Activity 4:  Full out clapping.  (It’s getting more intense!)
  • Activity 5:  Slap on the floor, or your thighs.  (Thunder enters!)
10.  After a big crescendo, repeat all the activities in reverse order as the storm dies down, until you’re rubbing hands together.
11.  Then quietly stop, and there should be absolutely silence.

​Mosaic Rainbows
One of the most beautiful parts of a rainstorm is its rainbow. Rainbows are a great way to teach children their colors. 

What you will need:
Construction paper: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, indigo
Glue
Safety Scissors
Large piece of white paper

Directions:
  1. Provide 1 piece of paper of each color to your child.
  2. Ask your child to cut the colored construction paper into small squares measuring about 1 inch.
  3. Help your child glue each color of the rainbow onto their large piece of white paper in the order and shape of a rainbow.
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Group 6
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Other Books About Rocks
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Teaching Colors Using Gemstones
Create Your Own "Not a Boring Rock" Story

Children love to use their imagination and create stories. Help your child find a pet rock and write its story.

Directions:
  1. Have your child draw a face on their rock using paint or chalk.
  2. Help your child write down his rock's story. Writing prompts may include:
  • What kind of rock is it? (for more information on rock types, check out a book from your library).
  • How old is your rock and what is its name?
  • What (or who) has your rock seen or visited with?
  • Maybe your rock has witnessed a historical event, or lived under the ocean, or met a now-extinct animal.

Building with Rocks

Preschoolers love to build. Rocks make great "blocks" for your child to play and build with.  You can help your child find rocks outside and clean them for inside play. 

Ask your child to build special landmarks using their rocks by introducing how rock was used for construction. Share pictures of any of the following historical landmarks:
  • The Parthenon, Athens, Greece.
  • Mount Rushmore, Keystone, South Dakota.
  • Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India.
  • Great Pyramid of Giza, El Giza, Egypt
  • Washington Monument, Washington, DC.


Making Letters with Rocks
Use the letter mats and some small rocks as an engaging way for preschoolers to practice letter formation.  Place rocks on the letter mat to form letters in the alphabet. You can ask your preschooler to turn the rock like a puzzle piece. 
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