Child care

Indoor Games
Indoor games provide another great opportunity for learning and developing social skills and usually involve the whole class. The ideas that follow came from the wonderful women on my yahoo email lists childcareland2 and shelleylovettsecprintables.

Two of our favorite indoor games: Show Me - this is a fun game that gets the children thinking. We start by sitting on the floortogether and I call out a child's name and tell him/her something to find ... for example ... "Sara ... show me something in the room that is red" .... the child then gets up shows everyone the red item that she has found. I then call on another child with a different color until all the children have had a turn. You can use this game for colors ... shapes (show me something shaped like a circle)... counting (show me five books) ...

and letters (show me something that stars with the letter A). Hide and Tell - this is another fun game. Before the children arrive I hide cards around the room. They can be cards with letters ... color.... numbers ... shape ... sight words ... pictures etc. We sit down together and I tell the children that I have hidden cards around the room ... I tell themwhat the cards are about (letters for example) and how many they are to find. I usually have them find two cards each. Once the children have found two cards they come back and sit down and I call on each child to come up and tell what cards they have found.

Shelley Lovett childcareland.com

We have two favorite games we play. One is using a standard deck of cards and we play a modifiedgame of FISH. Each child is dealt five cards. You look at your hand and if you have two red or two black cards you put them together and lay them down. Now they only have one or three cards to deal with. Next they pick a person and ask if they have either a red card or black card. If they get that requested card they lay down their match. If they don't get the one they ask they pick from pile. Youdon't get to keep going like in the real game. The object is to get a lot of pairs, not going out first. As they get older I select cards with the numbers they can identify and use two or more decks of cards and play the same way. Then the other game we play is with a bell and dice. The bell is that type that you clang with your palm. I have no idea what it is called. They used to use them athotel lobbies when you wanted assistance. Anyway, the kids take turns rolling five dice. They scan the dice and if they have a match or pair they get to ring the bell and roll again. If there is no match the next child gets a turn. As they get better they yell out "Pair of Twos" and ring the bell two times. The kids love it. caring4young

Our favorites include: Sleeping Animals: They pick ananimal. Ex. cat. I'll say "All cats go to sleep." They lay down and pretend to sleep. After a little bit I'll say "All cats wake up." They wake up and act like cats - crawling around and meowing. Then they pick another animal. Variation of Doggie, Doggie, Where's your bone? I use anything theme related. Ex. easter eggs at easter, feathers for birds, a plastic insect for insects etc. I choose a childto be "it". They hide their eyes while I give someone the object (everyone is sitting with their legs crossed and hands in their lap). They hide the object then the child that is "it" has three chances to guess who has the object. Variation of Simon Says - They each choose a stuffed animal. Then they follow the direction I give. Put your animal in the air. Spin your animal round and round. Putyour animal on your foot. ETC. Great way to teach positional words as well. Put your animal above your head. Put your animal under a chair. Put your animal behind the couch. Each month we have a new shape. I cut whatever that shape is out of poster board - make it as big as possible. Then they toss beanbags on it. Tina Clower

The biggest hit this year was started by two children- Called make a...