These fun, easy activities are great ways for little ones to participate in the celebration and help nurture their understanding of time.

• Countdown – A highlight of virtually every celebration is counting down to the new year.  If your child is old enough to attend daycare in Brookline, it’s likely they are not old enough to stay awake until midnight for the actual count, though.  Instead, re-enact the event with your child by counting down and releasing balloons or tossing confetti together.  Make it really festive by creating and wearing party hats or blowing noise makers.
• Birthday Party for the World – Until the concept of time becomes concrete, young children have difficulty grasping just what a New Year means.  A good analogy for them is a birthday celebration – in a sense, the world is marking a birthday each New Year’s Day.  Invite your child to help you make a birthday cake or special food to celebrate.  You can also make birthday cards to the world together, or decorate as you would for a regular birthday party and invite your child’s friends to join in the fun.
• Make a Calendar – Making and referring back to a calendar during your regular daily activities is a great way to help young children solidify the concept of time.  In fact, a monthly or weekly calendar is likely a staple item in your child’s daycare in Brookline.  A simple piece of printer or construction paper will work very well.  As you label the month and individual days with your child, make a game of it by spelling counting out loud.

Creating books is among the most favorite of preschool activities and allows children to explore their creativity.

To get started, ask your child to tell you their favorite and not so favorite moments from the holiday season.   Let them choose which memories they would like to include in their book and gather some materials.

Nothing fancy is needed.  Use sheets of construction paper, lined paper, poster board or even printer paper as your book’s pages.  With a hole punch and strands of yarn or staples, bind the pages together to form a book.

Invite your child to draw their selected memories on the pages, make handprints with paint, paste photographs or special items they select or cut and paste designs from construction paper into the book.  Working together, write captions with your child for each entry.

This simple preschool activity is an easy way to help the warmth of the holidays last a bit longer.  Creating and re-visiting holiday memory books together can become a loving tradition in your family, the stuff of which wonderful holiday memories are made.

There are ways for children of any age to participate in holiday preparations.  The rule of thumb is to keep it fun and simple.

• Food preparation – Your child can suggest items for your family’s holiday menu as well as help in its preparation.  Youngsters can help by sorting ingredients, washing produce, measuring, cutting and mixing ingredients with an adult’s help
• Gift shopping & making – If your celebrations involve exchanging gifts, encourage your child to select items they wish to give others.   Children old enough to understand the basics of counting and money can guided to make selections within a specific budget.  Kids of any age enjoy making gifts as well, and this is a great way to encourage their creative expression too.
• Decorating – Creating a festive environment is a big part of celebrating the holidays.    If your child makes special decorations or holiday artwork in their Brookline daycare program, display them when decorating your home.  If your family has special decorations or items used every year during the holidays, invite your children to help unpack these treasures or select places to display them.

Remember, the best holiday memories are those that involve family time.

It’s pretty common for most Brookline childcare programs to include seasons within the curriculum.  This usually can take the form of seasonal selections for storytime, classroom decorations, art projects or special celebrations.  Taking it one step further by providing your child with hands-on interaction with seasonal changes can help solidify their understanding of the information.  Believe it or not, this is true for any child in Brookline, infant to pre-K and beyond.

The trick in exploring the seasons  is to remember that children process information according to their developmental stage.  An infant may be fully engaged by a walk around the neighborhood in their stroller – noticing the surroundings, feeling the cooler air on their skin, etc – while your preschool child might be more interested in raking and jumping into a pile of colorful Fall leaves.

Here are a few suggestions for sharing signs of changing seasons with your youngster :

• Vist a local farm or farmers market- Farms and farmers markets are great settings to see changes in season.  Take turns with your child identifying produce or plants on the farm or in in the market that show Autumn is here.  Make a “storybook” of your visit together, and have your child draw Fall crops you saw – apples, pumpkins, hay, squash, etc.
• Cook “Fall” foods – Brainstorm with your child on foods that make them think of the Fall – apple cider, pumpkin, cranberries, etc, choose a recipe using one of these ingredients and make it together.  Younger children can help by getting supplies together, washing ingredients and stirring, while older children may be able to help with measuring or cutting ingredients with supervision.   Enjoy your creation with the whole family.
• Explore Fall leaves – One of the most obvious signs of changing seasons is beautiful Fall foliage.  There are so many activities you can enjoy with your child using them.
  • Collect an assortment of leaves of different shapes, sized and colors.  Arrange the leaves on a sheet of paper, and cover them with another sheet.  Using one or more crayons, color the top sheet to create colorful leaf rubbings.
  • Collect a variety of leaves from your yard or around the neighborhood.  Ask your child to sort them any way they wish, by size, color, shape, texture, etc.  Glue each group to a separate piece of paper, and when dry, staple the pages together to make a Fall Leaf scrap book

First, Make Contact

The best way for children to continue friendships outside of child care is for their respective families to get to know each other.  Many young children can easily rattle off the names of their friends, but may not know their last name, address or phone number.  Parents can easily fill in the gaps using the suggestions below.

• It is fairly common for Brookline daycare services to provide parents with a class list. If contact information is not included with this information, check with your child’s daycare provider to make introductions or let the other family know you are interested in getting in touch.
• Drop off and pick up times can be fairly hectic at any Brookline daycare center, but it can also be a great opportunity to quickly introduce yourself to the family of your child’s friend.  Ask your child to point out their friends so that you might say a quick hello to the adult with them.
• Involvement and volunteering when needed at your child’s Brookline daycare program are great ways to meet other parents.  Whether you serve on a committe or volunteer at storytime on occassion, the greater your involvement in the child care program the more opportunities you have to connect with other parents.

Once a connection is made between the families of your youngster’s Brookline child care friends so many chances to nurture friendships outside school are possible.