Wild Animal Livestreams, STEM Paper Airplanes, Playing with Patterns and More

Thursday, April 16, 2020

We are back with more fun, early learning activities you can do at home! We’ll be posting new ideas each week for ways you and your little ones can move, get creative and eat healthy while you are at home.Visit our resources page for more helpful information on how to talk to young children about coronavirus, how to de-stress as a family and more.

STEM Paper Airplanes

There are a lot of neat ways to take an ordinary paper airplane and make it a fun learning activity. Try this STEM activity to experiment and see which airplane can carry the most weight!

Practice with Patterns

What everyday objects can you use to make patterns? At home, you might already have stickers, colorful blocks or even M&Ms. Any of these things would be a great tool for practicing pattern-making with your child.Start with an AB pattern: ABABAB. (If you are using M&Ms, that might look like blue, yellow, blue, yellow and so on.) Can you encourage children to predict the next entry in a sequence? Have children continue to add to the pattern. If they understand the next steps, they can try building an AB pattern of their own. Once they've gotten a good grasp on AB patterns, you can try moving on to different types: AAB, AABB, ABC and so on. 

Sidewalk Chalk Messages and Water Painting

Do you have chalk? Sidewalk and driveway art is a great outdoor activity. You can make letters, numbers, pictures – the possibilities are endless. Fun, encouraging messages written on sidewalks can help lift the moods of those passing by. For third graders and up, making kindness rocks is another great activity to share some positivity with neighbors. Plus, one outdoor activity that never disappoints – water painting! If you've got a brush and a bucket, you can set up a "water painting" station. Have your kids paint fences, walls, sidewalks, whatever they want with water.

Wild Animal Livestreams

There's an eagle nest camera in Decorah, Iowa and the chicks are hungry! Watch it here: You can also check out other livestreams featuring puppies, kittens, ospreys, aquariums, hummingbirds and more.

Truck Songs

Do you like songs? Do you like trucks? The YouTube channel Twenty Trucks is filled with just that. Check out the Zamboni song below and so many others here.YWCA Minneapolis equips children with the knowledge and skills to reach their true potential. Our NAEYC-accredited and Four-Star Parent Aware rated early learning programs offer a whole-child learning approach to build children’s social-emotional, cognitive, physical and cultural development. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, YWCA Minneapolis is offering child care to essential workers at our Abbott Northwestern Hospital location and our Ecolab location.Learn More about YWCA Child Care