How Can We Do This At Home?
Explore the Nest, Kidzu’s early learning environment for children under three and their caregivers, from your home! Here you will find ideas for integrating some of the learning opportunities found in the Nest into your play at home.
Pecking Boards
Peck-A-Boo
Bird Boxes
The Burrow
The Light Lab
The Back Perch
The Flight Lab
The Might Lab
Nesting Nook
The Back Perch
How can we do this at home?
- Play rhyming games
- Sing songs
- Dance together
- Read books
- Name familiar objects while reading
- Identify color, shape
- Identify skin color, hair color, eye color of people
- Support child’s pretend play
- Offer materials for pretend food (blocks, string or ribbon, plastic bottle caps)
The Burrow
How can we do this at home?
- Play ‘peek-a-boo’
- Cover your face with your hands, or use a blanket or scarf and invite your child to find you
- Invite your child to hide their face with their hands and ‘surprise’ you
- Save cardboard boxes from deliveries and offer them as places to:
- Climb into and out of
- Draw on
- Use as pretend vehicles
- Make ramps out of trays, pieces of cardboard, paper towel tubes, and experiment with materials that roll (balls, spools, cars)
The Pecking Boards
How can we do this at home?
- Make ramps out of trays, pieces of cardboard,and/or paper towel tubes and experiment with materials that roll (balls, spools, cars)
- Offer plastic food containers as stacking materials
- Offer plastic food containers with materials to use for filling and dumping (rocks, plastic bottle caps, small blocks, corks)
- Build with blocks
- Encourage children to try again if their structure falls over
Bird Boxes
How can we do this at home?
- Offer cups and containers in the bathtub or shower to practice filling, dumping and transferring
- Invite children to help wash the dishes
- Save cardboard boxes for sturdy drawing surfaces
- Offer cardboard and/or paper with markers or crayons
- Narrate the drawing process for your child (“you are making so many dots with the purple marker!”)
- Expand on your child’s activity and model (“can you use the green crayon to draw a circle? It looks like this.)
- Collect materials from outside that have interesting textures and colors
- Sort the materials
- Use them to make patterns
The Nesting Nook
How can we do this at home?
- Read books with your children and name colors, shapes, skin color, hair color, and familiar objects from their lives, count objects
- Ask questions (can you find the yellow ball? How many trucks are on this page? How is this person feeling?)
- Sing rhyming songs and play rhyming games
- Help children identify their emotions
- Encourage children to try again if they can’t complete a task on the first attempt
The S.T.E.M. Wing
How can we do this at home?
The Light Lab
- Notice, talk about, interact with light and shadows in your environment
- Name colors and shapes of familiar objects at home
- Offer opportunities to sort materials (toys, clothes, food) by color, shape, texture, etc.
- Offer opportunities to create patterns with materials (“I made a pattern that goes ‘blue block, red block, blue block. What comes next?”)
The S.T.E.M. Wing
How can we do this at home?
The Flight Lab
- Spend time outside on a windy day and observe how the wind impacts your environment
- Make your own wind tunnel with a box fan or portable fan, scarves, and other light materials (paper cups, coffee filters, tissue paper)
The S.T.E.M. Wing
How can we do this at home?
The Might Lab
- Build ramps with cardboard, plastic storage container lids, PVC pipes, and anything flat that can be elevated at one end
- Experiment with changing the height of the ramp
- Send balls, cars, spools, corks, etc. down the ramps and see how far they travel
Explore Our Virtual Offerings Below:
Adaptive Play
Kidzu’s various resources for children with sensory processing issues and other different needs.
Storytime
Engaging videos of Kidzu staff and volunteers reading books, including Mandarin and Spanish.
Caregiver Resources
Several organized links to useful parenting websites, local resources, and engaging parenting podcasts.
Book Buzz
Printable Kidzu-developed activity booklets centered around a particular book, with activities and links.
Health & Wellness Resources
Kidzu has compiled various helpful resources for families on health and wellness topics.
Thank you to our sponsors!
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