Playful Parenting: Bringing Play to Every Day

Playful Parenting: Bringing Play to Every Day

Make Your Own Eyeball Wall at Home

If you’ve visited our recent special exhibit, Monsters on Summer Vacation, you likely saw the Eyeball Wall, a chalkboard wall covered in eyes that provides a backdrop for visitors to sketch out monster faces and expressions of their own.

You can recreate this piece of the museum in your own home and let your kids get creative with this printable template.

Print out a copy (or two or three) of the eyeball sheet. Then, let your imagination out to play by drawing or painting creatures to match the eyes. Make your own monsters with smiling fangs, tangles of tentacles, scales, stripes and so much more.

If you want to make this activity eco-friendly, put the printout into a clear sleeve protector and draw on it with dry erase markers. When it’s full, wipe clean and start again for unlimited fun!

DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE EYEBALL WALL TEMPLATE

 

What Kids Learn

How to Support the Play

  • Remember: There is often more than one “right way” of doing things.
  • When a child asks for help, guide without taking over. Nudge them along with suggestions framed as questions. “What would happen if…?”

HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES

HANDS-ON ARTICLES

Glue Gun Fun

There’s no substitution for hands-on exploration. Letting kids (safely) experiment with real tools, such as a glue gun, provides opportunities to build confidence, independence, creative thinking skills and more.

read more

DIY Paper Tube Xylophone

Get your kids excited about exploring music by making your own paper tube xylophone. Or, make a few and start your own xylophone band!

read more

Build a Gnome Home

Spark your child’s imagination and creative thinking skills by building a whimsical gnome home. Make a single home or an entire village.

read more

Water Play

Kids love playing with water. But it's not just about the fun of splashing around and getting wet. Kids experiment, explore and discover while playing with water — Does this object float or sink? How does water flow through this funnel? What happens if I fill a cup...

read more

Milk Carton Bird Feeder

Have an empty milk carton on hand? Spark some creativity and fun – and put it to good use – by creating a DIY bird feeder.

read more

DIY Kinetic Sand

Kinetic sand is an easy project that allows kids to explore their senses, build fine motor skills and strengthen their imaginative play muscles.

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This