Play Pack: 5 Simple Play Ideas You Can Do Today All text and images copyright 2016 Carolyn Elbert All Rights Reserved.

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2 Play Pack: 5 Simple Play Ideas You Can Do Today All text and images copyright 2016 Carolyn Elbert All Rights Reserved. 2

3 3 Table of Contents Intro... 4 Play Materials... 5 Activity 1: Sticker Story Bag... 7 Activity 2: Playdough Creatures... 8 Activity 3: Animal Grab Bag Game... 9 Activity 4: Paper Bag Monsters Activity 5: Create Your Own I Spy BONUS! Fine Motor Play Activities Sticker Match Sticker Stack Feed the animals! Animal Tracks Printable Materials List Playdough Recipe About the author... 19

4 4 Intro Welcome to the Simple Play Ideas community! This download is your free Simple Play Pack for subscribing to our newsletters. This Simple Play Pack contains 5 simple play ideas. Plus I m so thrilled that you re here, I couldn t resist adding 4 bonus fine motor play ideas for you. So, what makes a play idea simple? For me, a simple play idea is: a fun activity for kids that can be done easily with prep time of 5 minutes or under using items you are likely to have on hand. For each activity, this Play Pack gives you: Materials: All the lists of the stuff you need. There is a printable checklist at the end of the pack. Also, the next page goes through and explains each item on the list. Play Prep: This includes how to set up the activity and approximately how long you can expect set up to take. This is based on me timing myself. So your play prep time will vary! Let s Play: The most important part! How to do each activity. Modify it: Each activity includes adaptions for older or younger kids. Of course, for more simple play ideas, check your inbox for our newsletters (yay!) and head over to our website,

5 5 Play Materials Get started with these materials all things you probably have on hand all the time! At the back of this Play Pack you ll find a printable check list with everything you need. Pull it out for all 5 simple play ideas! Materials: Playdough Toy animals Washable markers Paper Stickers Paper bag Scissors (for adult use) Googly eyes About The Play Materials These materials and matching activities show you how simple this can be! Playdough I ve included a recipe for you the back of the pack. That s a fun activity on its own. But it s not always so simple and doesn t meet my under 5 minutes prep time test. I usually use store bought playdough. So feel free to go ahead and buy it! I love looking at all the bright colors fresh out of the container. Of course, this lasts for about 2 minutes, until my playdough mixing kids turn the playdough mostly to a shade of tan or grey. Toy animals I use smallish ones not tiny, and definitely watch any child who may put toys in his mouth. Use any kind of animal: farm, dinosaurs, zoo animals, sea animals, pets whatever you have. Some of the brands we like are Duplo or Safari Ltd or Playmobile. You can even find small animals at the grocery store.

6 6 Washable markers I ve been through enough marker-based activities to insist on buying washable markers for little ones! Just makes things simple. Paper Use what you have: construction paper, printer paper, a notebook. Poster board would be cool if you have it. Seriously, any paper works. Stickers Whatever you have! Sets of animals, colored stars, seasonal stickers. Stickers you got for free at a grocery store. Use what you have. Paper Bag Just use lunch bag/ gift bag sized paper bags. You want something you can t see through and that can be written on. Scissors This one s for the adults. Or, of course, if you have an older child and you are comfortable with their ability to safely use scissors, they could use their child scissors. Googly eyes These are optional. Before I started Simple Play Ideas, googly eyes weren t something I always had on hand. They are ridiculously cute, just not something I could count on having. If you don t have them, no worries. Any activity in this pack will work without the googly eyes. Just substitute drawing eyes in with the markers.

7 7 Activity 1: Sticker Story Bag Materials: Stickers, markers, paper, paper bag Play prep (2 minutes): Cut up the stickers and put them into the paper bag. Lay out the paper and the markers. Let s play! Your child closes her eyes and reaches into the paper bag to grab a sticker. Then she places the sticker on the paper (you can help), and creates a story. Your child does this by looking at the sticker and imagining what happens and repeating it out loud to you. You then write the story down next to the sticker. Then your child grabs the next sticker. And, using that next sticker as inspiration, tells the next part of the story. As they tell you how the story progresses, write it down. Modify it: Younger kids help them identify and place the sticker where they want it. Their story might be very basic. Moo! is a perfect start to a story! Older kids Help them create their story using a left to right and top to bottom progression of stickers and stories. Some words you could repeat back to them and ask them what letter starts or ends the word they used. You could also let them write a word or two or part of the story.

8 8 Activity 2: Playdough Creatures Materials: markers, playdough (optional: googly eyes) Play prep (<1 minute): Lay out the materials. Let s Play! Get out the playdough. Your child shapes it into a creature by rolling, pressing, and squeezing dough. It can be a 3D creature, by stacking and molding the dough, or a flat creature by pressing the dough into flat shapes on the mat. Add details using markers and googly eyes! Have you ever used markers on playdough before? It s super awesome. Your kids will love drawing scales, lines, dashes, scars. Mark up those creatures! Then add on googly eyes as many and wherever your creature needs them. Modify it: Younger kids Just let them go with it. Help them out with the markers especially the caps and making sure they don t put them in their mouths. Older kids Create stories and scenes with your creatures!

9 9 Activity 3: Animal Grab Bag Game Materials: toy animals, paper bag Play prep (<1 minute): Drop several animals into a paper bag. Let s Play! Take turns closing eyes and reaching into the bag to pull out one animal at a time. Let your child identify the animal. Then they act out that animal, including sounds, movement, and walks. Modify it: Younger kids They may have a certain animal in mind, no matter what they choose from the bag. Or they may need prompting saying the noise or acting out how the animal moves. Go with it and have fun! Older kids While their eyes are still closed, before they pull the animal out of the bag, ask them to guess what animal they chose, using their sense of touch.

10 10 Activity 4: Paper Bag Monsters Materials: paper bag, markers (optional: googly eyes) Play prep (<1 minute): Get out the materials Let s Play! Draw the monster on the paper bag. We usually make the monster s mouth be the bottom part of the bag where it folds. Add details with markers or googly eyes! Modify it: Younger kids They may need you to put your hands in the bag to open and close it and show them how the monster eats. Older kids Try other paper bag creatures. Draw ears and spots for a paper bag dog or bunny or a cat or a mouse any animal they can imagine!

11 11 Activity 5: Create Your Own I Spy Materials: Stickers, paper Play Prep (1-5 minutes): Get out the paper and stickers. Let s play! Explain to your kids that they are creating an I spy game. They are in charge of the design and you will play together to see what you can each find while playing the game. Let them place stickers all over the paper. Then play I spy. Take turns. You could say I spy something blue and wait for your child to point to a blue sticker. Or try I spy something next to a sticker of. Let your child take a turn! Modify it: Younger kids Little ones may need help peeling the stickers off the page. You can do the first part of their prompt. For example, say What do you want me to find? I spy something and then let them say blue! and then you would start guessing. Older kids You can make your turns more complicated for them to guess. For example, you could say I spy 2 things that are the same and they would have to point to the 2 stickers that match. Or I spy something under a sticker shaped like a rectangle and they would search for a rectangular shaped sticker, and point to the sticker under it. Add markers to this activity and draw some items to spy.

12 12 BONUS! Fine Motor Play Activities Sticker Match Materials: Paper, marker, stickers Play prep (2-4 minutes): Make a row of stickers on the left and on the right hand side of the page, in a vertical column. Stickers usually come in a related set. For example, penguins all wearing different colored bows. Place 1 sticker on one side and its match on the other. In this example, you would use 2 penguins with blue bows. One would go on one side of the page, and the second on the other side of the page. You would repeat this for each color you had. Let s Play! Give your child the sheet you created and a marker, and let her connect the stickers! Younger kids let them just draw connections however they want on the page. Or they could simply draw the line using their finger. No markers needed! Older kids Have them make a connection between the stickers without any prompting. They could tell a story matching the stickers, or they could simply identify the link without you prompting them (in our example, the matching colored penguins).

13 13 Sticker Stack Materials: Paper, stickers Play prep (<1 minute): Give your child paper and matching sets of stickers. This works well with large stickers, especially shape stickers. Let s Play! Your child will create a sticker stack by placing matching stickers on top of each other. Or they could create columns of stickers by placing stickers in lines of rows up and down the paper. Modify It: Younger kids Let them place the stickers wherever they want! Older kids Use shapes that are more challenging to differentiate. For example, use circles and ovals, and ask your child to create one stack of circles and one stack of ovals.

14 14 Feed the animals! Materials: toy animals, playdough Play prep (<1 minute): Get out the materials Let s Play! It s time to give the animals a snack! Create colorful playdough food for your critters. Practice making playdough balls by rolling the playdough in a circle, and long thin tubes by rolling the playdough back and forth. Kids can roll the playdough in between their hands or using one hand on top of the table. Once they ve created the food, bring the animals over to chow down! Modify It: Younger kids Little ones can just break off pieces of dough or feed the animals using large chunks. Older kids They can create stories, families of animals eating together, and role play!

15 15 Animal Tracks Materials: playdough, toy animals Play prep (3-5 minutes): Press the playdough into a flat shape, or several large flat shapes. You want this to be big enough for them to press the feet of the animal they are using into the dough several times. Let s Play! Make animal tracks in the playdough. Let them experiment with varying amounts of pressure to see how the impression they create changes. Create trails using multiple animal tracks. Modify It: Younger kids They ll press the feet, and heads, and bodies pretty much the whole animal! into the playdough. Older kids Let them handle set up. You can make this into a guessing game for them by pressing the animal feet into the dough while they close their eyes and have them guess which animal made which set of tracks.

16 16 Printable Materials List The next page is your printable materials list. I d suggest that you print it out and stick it on the fridge (or keep it in a place where you can pull it out easily). Bonus points if you laminate it. Now, with your printable list, you can grab these materials before you play; maybe at naptime, or while the kids are at school. Depending on your kid s age, they may even be able to do some, or all, of these activities on their own. Which means ding! ding! ding! Time for you to sit down and drink a cup of coffee while it s still warm-- write a grocery list, or make dinner!

17 17 Play Pack Checklist Playdough Toy animals Washable markers Paper Stickers Paper bag Scissors (for adult use) Googly eyes

18 18 Ingredients: 1 cup flour 2 tablespoons cream of tartar 1/4 cup salt 1 cup water 1 tablespoon vegetable oil Playdough Recipe Mix the dry ingredients, and then pour in the water and oil. Mix together and cook over medium heat on the stove for about 5 minutes, stirring until the dough comes together into a ball. Let it cool and play! If you want to color your playdough, add in food coloring with the water. More drops = more color.

19 19 About the author Carolyn is the creator of Simple Play Ideas, a blog full of awesome and easy ways to play with your kids and playful ways to learn. Make sure you get all our simple play ideas and sign up for the free newsletter (