We’re in the living room!
Each month offers activities families can do together in a variety of settings. The activities within the Learning is Everywhere Calendar and on the website are aligned with the Pennsylvania Early Learning Standards (ELS).
These guidelines can be used to determine what infants, toddlers, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten children may know or be able to do within specific age ranges.
Print the book list! 12 Family and Friends Books.
- Ciencia Magica enla sala de estar by Richard Robinson
- Please, baby, please by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee
- Who’s in my Family by Robie H. Harris
- More More More, Said the Baby: Three Love Stories by Vera Williams
- Annie Rose is My Little Sister by Shirley Hughes
- Lion in the Living Room by Caelaach McKinna & A. R. Stone
- Crazy Hair Day by Barney Saltzberg
- Toot & Puddle You Are my Sunshine by Holly Hobbie
- Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
- Max’s First Word by Rosemary Wells
- Hunter’s Best Friend at School by L. M. Elliott
- Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
Put on a music CD, or sing a nursery rhyme and help your baby clap their hands, wiggle feet, bicycle legs. Show your baby how you clap hands, wriggle fingers, twirl, and bob up and down. Health, Wellness and Physical Development
With your baby laying down, or sitting safely in an infant seat, use an open, unfolded newspaper page to hide behind. Peek out from behind the newspaper page at different places (such as the left side, then the top) so they can look for you each time. Say the same phrase each time you peek out, like “Here is Daddy!” or “Grandma has a surprise for you!” See if they anticipate where you will come from next, or if they look for you to appear. Creative Thinking and Expression
Check out PA’s Promise for Children’s Pinterest Board, Babies Learning Through Play for more activity ideas!
Action games keep toddlers busy while they are learning to move and follow directions. Simon Says is a simple game where you use commands such as ‘Simon says, clap your hands’ and give time for your toddler to follow. Encourage your child when they follow correctly. Social & Emotional Development
Save clean containers of all shapes and sizes, like yogurt containers, margarine tubs, plastic spice jars, for your toddler to play with. Talk about which ones are big, and which are little. Encourage them to put the small container inside the big container, or to add items (like blocks) into the containers. Talk about when the items are in and when the items are out of the containers. Let them practice putting the lids on and taking them off. Approaches to Learning through Play
Using music on the radio, CDs or tapes from the library or your home collection, dance with your toddler using your entire body. Using the beat of the music, show him how to reach for the sky, or wiggle like a worm. Encourage them to use different body parts, like fingers or feet, in a dance. Health, Wellness and Physical Development
Low-adhesive tape, like masking or painter’s tape, can be used to make a road map in the living room. Working with your preschooler, ask where the roads should go. Will they go over a sofa? Under a table? Behind a chair? Once created, use toy vehicles, dolls or toy animals to follow the roads. Ask where the roads lead and what will be found at the end. Creative Thinking and Expression
With magazines or newspapers, your preschooler can choose a theme, like animals or food. Then, using safety scissors, encourage them to look through the magazines or newspapers to find and cut out pictures that fit into the selected theme. Talk about why certain items fit into the theme, and why others do not. Once the pictures are cut out, have them choose a few favorites to paste or glue onto a piece of paper they can keep. Approaches to Learning through Play
Use a paper lunch bag to make a puppet. Turn the lunch bag upside down so that the bottom of the bag becomes the top of the puppet. Use the flap for the face, have your preschooler draw a face with crayons or markers, and talk about what the puppet might be and what it might do. Once finished creating the puppet, have them put their hand inside and to make the puppet talk. What does it say? Check out PA’s Promise for Children’s Pinterest Board, Feelin’ Crafty for more puppet ideas! Creating Thinking and Expression
Have your kindergartner take inventory of your living room. Using a magazine or newspaper and safety scissors, have them cut out different letters of the alphabet. Then match the letter to the items (C for Chair, S for Shelves, B for Books, and so on). For any leftover letters (like X or Z), talk about what could be put into the living room that would begin with those letters (like zebras!) and ask their opinion about having that item in the living room. Do they think it would be a good idea? Would it fit into the living room? Language and Literacy Development: Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening
Share with your kindergartner a measuring tape and show the numbers. Have them measure different items in the living room and ask questions about the sizes of the different items. How tall is the coffee table? Is it taller than the chair? Which is smaller — a book or a picture frame? How do they know which is smaller? Mathematics Thinking and Expression
Using a music CD, or singing a song, have your kindergartner act out the song using his entire body. Include songs with a different theme (such as Wheels on the Bus) where their can be different parts (like the wheels), or songs about animals (such as The Bear Went Over the Mountain) and they can do what they think the animal would do. Or take a song that typically includes finger play (such as The Itsy-Bitsy Spider) and have them act it out using the entire body. Health, Wellness and Physical Development