Adventure Activities

I Hear With My Own Ear

Encourage your kids to be like scientists and keep track of their learning in this science notebook from the PBS KIDS show Elinor Wonders Why. Use the charts and tables below to organize thinking, document findings, and record data from science investigations as they play I Hear With My Own Ear!

• Senses Check
• Outdoor Safety

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Robotic Arm Challenge

Has your child ever left a toy in a place they couldn’t quite reach? In this activity from Ready Jet Go!, your child will use their engineering know-how to build a robotic arm, and then use it to solve an out-of-reach problem such as grabbing a toy that rolled under the couch or an object on a high shelf.

• Robotic Arm Template

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Clouds and Weather

Vocabulary

Helpful hint: Children learn best with repeated exposure to new words. After completing this activity, try using these words in your daily routines, like when getting dressed for the day.

weather, wind, sun, clouds, rain, snow, thunder, tornado, lightning, cumulus, cirrus, stratus, cumulonimbus

For this activity, you will need:

• Large open area (on a table or the floor)
• One straw per person
• Cotton balls
• Paper for drawing on

Directions:

1. Watch Clouds and Weather
2. Ask your child, “What made the clouds move across the sky?”
3. Share that they will be creating weather by making clouds move on a windy day.
4. Sit at a table (or on the floor) and give your child one straw and a few cotton balls.
5. Encourage them to blow through the straw to make the cotton balls move.
   Try asking these questions:
   – How do the “clouds” move when you blow hard through the straw?
   – How do the “clouds” move when you lightly blow through the straws?
6. Provide time for your child to draw pictures of their clouds.
   – Ask 1-2 year olds to hold a crayon and draw a picture of their clouds.
   – Ask 3-4 year olds to draw a picture and help them label it using words like ‘sun’ ‘rain’ ‘storm’.
   – Ask 5-7 year olds to write a story about a stormy day.  Kindergartners are beginning to be able to write simple sentences and 1st and 2nd graders are beginning to write a couple paragraphs. If needed help children form words based on how each letter sounds.

Extension Activities:

• Take children outside to observe the sky and identify different types of clouds. Ask them what kind of weather they might expect based on the clouds they see.
• Track the weather with a family weather chart

Related Books:

All about Weather: A First Weather Book for Kids by Huda Harajli
Little Cloud by Eric Carle

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Let's Tell a Story

Vocabulary:

first, then, next, finally

For this activity, you will need:

• ball
• paper folded into two sections
• crayons or markers

Directions:

1. Describe how sharing a story is a little like passing a ball. Someone tosses and someone catches. For this activity, the person who holds the ball answer the question while others listen. When they are done answering the question, they toss the ball to the next person to answer the question.
2. To practice, pass the ball and share your:
   – name
   – favorite color
   – favorite animal
3. Pass the ball to answer the following questions:
   – If I had a hamster, I’d name it _________________.
   – My hamster would probably like to ______________.
4. Next watch the video about a classroom hamster.
5. Pass the ball again to have your child share ideas about where Hammie would go next in the backpack.
6. Encourage your child to draw two new adventures for the hamster on the paper.
7. Show what the hamster would do first and then what the hamster would do next.
8. Share the hamster stories using the words first and next (e.g., “First, my hamster ate a piece of apple” and “Next, my hamster rolled around in his ball”).

Extension Activities:

• Watch Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to create a new story or continue Hammie’s adventures in a new way!
• Instead of drawing hamsters (step 6) have them create two hamsters with oval shaped felt or construction paper and googley eyes. Glue the hamsters down and continue to step 7.

Related Books: 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Napping House by Audrey Wood
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin
My First Day by Steve Jenkins

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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Vocabulary:

shadow, light, image, pretend, make-believe, first, next, then, finally

For this activity, you will need:

• Light colored sheet
• Clothes line or string
• Clothes pins
• Rock or other heavy object

Directions:

1. Watch Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
2. Hang a sheet using a clothesline and clothes pins or hang sheet up the shower curtain.
3. To keep the sheet in place, place rocks or other heavy objects at the base of the sheet.
4. If outside, ensure the sun is behind the sheet and if inside, use a bright light behind your child to project shadows onto the sheet.
5. Have children create their own shadows. Tell a story with shadows.
   – Helpful Hint: If you completed the Let’s Tell a Story activity with Hammie the Hamster, children can continue the story in their shadow show.
6. Have the rest of your family sit on the opposite side of the sheet and try to guess what the story is about.

Extension Activities:

Let’s Tell a Story video and activity

Related Books: 

Walter Wick’s Optical Tricks by Walter Wick
Bear Shadow by Frank Asch
I Love My Shadow by Hans Wilhelm

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Perfect Picnic

Presenting foods to children in a fun environment where they have a chance to experience the taste, texture, and smell of fresh fruits and vegetables is a great way to encourage them to try new things.

Helpful Hint: Children need to see adults try new things too! Pick foods that you haven’t tried, or haven’t tried in a while.

Vocabulary:

healthy, unhealthy, sweet, smooth, sticky, solid, sour, fresh

For this activity, you will need: 

• Picnic blanket and basket
• Paper plates, cups, and napkins
• A variety of healthy fruits and vegetables   
• Healthy fruit and vegetable drinks: tomato juice, carrot juice, and low sugar/high concentrate fruit juices that the children may not have tasted such as pomegranate, plum, cranberry, guava, etc.
• A folded piece of paper with two columns. Title one chart “Favorite” and the other “Least Favorite.”
• Markers

Directions:

1. Watch Perfect Picnic
2. Share your experience trying new healthy foods and retrying the ones that you didn’t care for in the past. Point out that taste buds change over time.
3. Ask your child:
   – What is your favorite healthy food to take on a picnic?
   – What is one healthy food you have never tried before that you would like to put in your picnic basket?
4. Explain that you are having a picnic and go over the different foods you have.
5. Encourage your child to try everything. Ask:
   – How does it taste?
   – How does it feel in your hand?
   – Does it smell? Do you like the smell?
6. Once they have tried the different foods, have your child to help clean up and help put everything away.
7. On the folded piece of paper, have your children list or draw each food in either the favorite or least favorite column.
8. Talk about what each chart shows. Is there anything in common? Have their taste buds changed?

Related Books:

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
Llama Llama Yum Yum Yum! by Anna Dewdney

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Patterns Repeat

Vocabulary:

pattern, sequence, repeat, next, first, last

For this activity, you will need: 

• pipe cleaners
• small googley eyes
• glue, beads (for younger children use larger beads to avoid choking hazards)

Directions:

1. Watch That’s a Pattern
2. Explain to your child that they are going to make a silly snake pattern.
3. Have them twist one end of a pipe cleaner to make a head.
4. Have your child place beads on the pipe cleaner, creating a pattern. Talk to your child about the pattern they made:
   – You made a pattern. Tell me about it.
   – What comes next?
   – How could we make a picture that would help us remember this pattern?
   – What would happen to the pattern if I changed ______?
5. Once they get to the end of the pipe cleaner, add a small dap of glue to hold the last bead in place.
6. Glue googley eyes to the head.

Extension Activities:

Play That’s a Pattern on PBS LearningMedia.

• Using large everyday objects, like socks or toys, to make patterns
• Collect rocks, leaves, flowers, etc. to make patterns
• Use crayons or makers to create a pattern

Related Books:

Pitter Pattern by Joyce Hesselberth
A-B-A-B-A—a Book of Pattern Play by Brian P. Cleary

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