Table Time Activity: Q-tip Snowflakes
Skill Check
This craft focuses on fine motor skills through painting and cutting.
Growing My Skills
Gather blue paper, white paint, scissors, glue and q-tips.
Create lines on blue paper as guide for child to cut into strips.
Cut with assistance if needed.
Arrange blue pieces into snowflake shape and glue.
Dip q-tip into white paint and decorate.
Floortime Play Activity: Winter Scavenger Hunt
Skill Check
The goal of this activity is to help your child explore and engage with their environment, spend meaningful time with one another, and maintain engagement in a play activity.
Growing My Skills
Work together to find all the winter items on the scavenger hunt list – both inside and outside!
Give clues to where you might find items, talk about what you see, or race each other to the next item on the list.
Relaxation Time Activity: Fort Building for Quiet Reading Time!
Skill Check
The goal of this activity is to help your child engage and participate in learning coping exercises (finding a quiet space when needed) while also teaching them about holiday traditions!
Growing My Skills
During this activity talk to your child about your holiday traditions!
What you use to do as a child/with your family.
What your favorite tradition was. Introducing them to new ideas and activities to look forward to!
Creative Time Activity: Building a Snowman!
Skill Check
The goal of this activity is to help your child follow instructions and build their creativity and fine motor skills!
Growing My Skills
Gather materials.
Please help guide the child through this craft (hand-over-hand or prepping certain materials may be necessary) as it is more challenging (please see Pinterest link for step-by-step instructions).
Ask your child questions that will help them connect with the craft they are making; Where do you see snowmen? What happens when snowmen get hot? What do they wear on their head? What do they have as a nose?
Movement Time Activity: Snowball Fight
Skill Check
The goal of this week is to practice your throwing skills with a snowball fight!
Growing My Skills
Work on throwing at a target or just throwing snowballs at each other.
Good throwing looks like making sure your body is facing towards the target, starting with the ball by your ear, then stepping with the opposite side foot while throwing forward.
Mealtime Activity: Food that Reminds me of Home
Skill Check
The goal of this activity is to involve child in at least one holiday tradition surrounding food. Eating not required.
Growing My Skills
Shop and prepare holiday traditional food, child can participate in preparation or not (see Mealtime section of “Thanksgiving 2” lesson plans).
Prepare a short story involving food prepared using pictures, social stories, verbal stories or printed books. Encourage child to sit for at least 3 pages of the story, referring to the physical food in front of them.
TIP: to encourage participation with the book and the food, ask your child to “point to (food)” in the story and “point to (food) on table” modeling the action for them.
TIP: Encourage your child to act out the story in front of them using the physical food.
Language Time Activity: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Building a Snowman
Skill Check
The goal of this week is to increase your child’s expressive, pragmatic, receptive language skills by following directions, taking turns, and commenting on what their snowman looks like.
Growing My Skills
Have fun with your child creating your own snowmen!
Target use of qualitative and quantitative concepts (e.g., size, color, shape, number) as well as following directions while creating your very own snowman.
After you read the book, make your own snowman craft!
Target following directions by instructing what steps/items the child should add.
Let your child instruct you on how to create your own snowman, to target expressive language skills *Focus on describing words, such as size, color, shape, and number while building.
Increase complexity by including prepositional or location concepts (e.g., but the blue button under the red scarf).