Beholding the starry night sky is awe-inspiring and stokes the imagination for kids and adults alike. The night sky has also inspired storytelling throughout human history. Across time and cultures, people have seen pictures in the stars and told stories about the meaning of the constellations. In this activity we share some resources to inspire your family to learn more about your night sky. Then, kids turn a piece of fabric into a night sky of their own to tell their own starry stories. Here’s how:
Gather your materials: Gather a dark sheet or towel to become the background for your night sky. Then, gather materials you can use to add elements (e.g. stars, planets, meteors, etc.) to your night sky. This could include light colored chalk, shaving cream or even flour or cornstarch plus water.
Invite kids to play and create their own night sky: Head outside and lay out your materials. Talk a bit about the night sky and whatever you know or have learned about it. Then, wonder, How could we create our own night sky? Step back and welcome your child to explore the materials.
If it feels supportive, model a few ways to use the materials yourself. Dip the chalk in water and dab it onto the fabric to make dots. Use a stick or a rock to crush up the chalk into a powder. Then, mix in a bit of water to create your own chalk paint. Kids can dip their fingers into the paint and dab it onto the fabric. Or, if you have a paintbrush handy, invite kids to dab, flick or splatter the paint with their brush.
Let kids play and create: Make sure kids have space and time to use the materials to create and add to the night sky. Continue to play alongside or just sit back and let it all unfold.
[Extension] Look for constellations: Once kids have added “stars” to their night sky, take a moment to step back and marvel at their creation. What would happen if they connected some of the dots? Can they create one of the constellations? A brand-new constellation? What stories can they tell about the pictures they see in their night sky?
[Enjoy!] Play under the stars: Once dry, turn the night sky into a prop to spark imaginative space play. Drape the fabric over couch cushions, outdoor furniture or a tree branch and invite kids to pretend to camp out and sleep under the stars. Offer flashlights and invite kids to make their stars shine. Enjoy some starry parachute play by inviting kids and/or adults to each take a corner of the sheet and coordinate moving it up and down together. Kids can scurry inside the sheet on its way down so they can experience the sensation of being enveloped by stars.
Taking time to slow down and notice the night sky not only connects us to the natural world, it exposes the world's immense beauty and sparks joy and curiosity. This kind of open-ended chance to transform chalk and cloth into a sky also supports kids in using multiple senses and thinking creatively.
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By communication, we mean the ability to listen, understand, speak, read and write and more. In order to communicate effectively, kids must learn to understand what they want to get across, then decide on how to convey their messages, working to coordinate the mind and body to do so. They also need to learn to anticipate how the message will be received by another person(s). This is rather elegant and requires a symphony of physical, cognitive and social capabilities. The more children can practice, the better!
Why does it matter?
On a very practical level, kids need to be able to express questions and ideas in order to learn. Kids who communicate effectively can test ideas, seek help and let their formal and informal teachers in the world know what they understand and where they need support. Kids will also need strong and nuanced communication skills in order to work well in peer groups and manage relationships with authority figures, critical parts of life in classrooms and beyond. Later in life, they will need these skills to form close relationships, advocate for themselves within communities and be effective in the workplace.
Creativity
Category:
Thinking Skills
What is Creativity?
By creativity, we mean the ability to both imagine original ideas or solutions to problems and actually do what needs to be done to make them happen. So, to help kids develop creativity, we parents need to nurture kids' imaginations and give them lots of chances to design, test, redesign and implement their ideas.
"Creativity is as important now in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
Why, you ask? For one, it is through being creative that a person is able to get senses, sensibility and spirit working together. Simply put, without creativity, we don't think our kids will live a full life.
On a more practical level, it's also the means by which humans of all ages make an impact on the world and other people around them. A lot of heavy stuff is going to go down in our kids' lifetime, and their generation will need to imagine and implement solutions to big and very complicated problems. Although our kids are still far from public office or the boardroom, today's political and business leaders worldwide are already pointing to creativity as the most important leadership quality for the future.
Although years from the art studio or design lab, little kids can learn to think and act creatively if you give them time and the right practice.
Imagination
Category:
Thinking Skills
What is Imagination?
Imagination is defined in many ways, but one we like is, "the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality." This is no small task to little kids, and yet young childhood is a time in which imagination is developed more than any other. How does imagination develop in childhood? Through an increasingly sophisticated life of make believe.
We all likely have a sense of what we mean by make believe or good old "pretend play." How do experts define it, though? To some, there are different types of make believe that vary in sophistication and make pretend play different than other types of play. For example, kids may use objects to represent something else (e.g. a block becomes a cell phone). Or, they may start to give an object certain properties (e.g. a doll is asleep or a tree is on fire!). Still yet, they may themselves take on the properties of someone or something else.
From there, pretend play evolves into acting out scenarios or stories, those getting increasingly intricate as imagination develops. As kids' pretend play grows more sophisticated, these stories come to involve not only the creative use of objects, but multiple perspectives (e.g. good and bad guys in the same story), and/or the playful manipulation of ideas and emotions (e.g. I am sad, but then become happy after I save the village from certain doom).
Why does it matter?
An ever growing body of research substantiates the many benefits of pretend play including the enhanced development of: language and communication skills; self-control and empathy; flexible and abstract thinking; and creativity. These are the skills that will help kids balance emotions, form healthy relationships, work effectively on teams, stay focused in school, be successful at various jobs and solve the problems of an increasingly complicated world. An individual's creativity in particular, both requires and is limited by her imagination.
Sensory
Category:
Body Skills
What is Sensory Development?
Although some scientists classify as many as 20 senses, when childhood educators talk about "developing the senses," we typically mean developing the five standard senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. In addition to honing these senses, educators care about sensory integration, which is the ability to take in, sort out, process and make use of information gathered from the world around us via the senses.
Why does it matter?
The better kids are able to tune and integrate their senses, the more they can learn. First, if their senses are sharper, the information kids can gather should be of greater quantity and quality, making their understanding of the world more sophisticated. Further, until the lower levels of the brain can efficiently and accurately sort out information gathered through the senses, the higher levels cannot begin to develop thinking and organization skills kids need to succeed. Senses also have a powerful connection to memory. Children (and adults) often retain new learning when the senses are an active part of the learning.
So, if kids have more sensory experiences, they will learn more, retain better and be better able to think at a higher level. Makes the days they get all wet and dirty in the sandbox seem better, doesn't it?
Age: 0 to 8+
Time: 1 hour+
Materials: dark colored fabric or bed sheet, sidewalk chalk, water, (optional) paintbrush
