Some of the most fun I had as a child, and even as an adult, is using creativity. Regardless of your child’s age, you can learn so much through play. Have your child dress up as a teacher and you be the student so they can learn more about what is involved in teaching lessons. It also gives your child the opportunity to play “grown up”. You might be surprised by some of the knowledge your child has captured at school. Additionally, you can also use some lunch bags or socks and make puppets and pretend that you are at a restaurant or on a vacation. If your child is struggling with a fear, you can talk the fear out through the puppets.
Another way to learn about your child is to use some crayons and paper and draw pictures of what things look like, for example “What does happy look like?”, “What does scary look like?”, “What does ________ look like?” A friend of mine recently did that with his son and when his son drew “fear” it was a picture of a graded paper with an “F” on it. Surprisingly, the child had never expressed concerns about school and enjoyed going. So, it opened-up conversation that might have never been had.
With all of these creative play ideas, you can also add music, singing, and dancing. You can make up your own dance routine or special handshake which adds to creating, practicing, and memorizing a routine. There are so many things you can do with resources you already have at home. If your child enjoys story time, create a book about an animal and the animal’s name can be your child’s name backwards. My book, when I was little, was about “Alamac” the giraffe who would come and visit me so we could go explore. What might you learn with creative play with your child?
