Welcome to Greentrike’s monthly Playful Guide! We’re excited to share some upcoming events at the Children’s Museums of Tacoma and at JBLM this month, as well as a reflective activity for families to try out at home.
We’re also thrilled to share that Play to Learn at all locations will return for the fall season during the week of September 30, 2024! Visit our Play to Learn page to find out more about program locations and dates.
Greentrike Events This August
The following family-friendly events require no registration! We’re proud to include Museum events, such as SPARKS Workshops and Sip and Storytime events, with Pay As You Will admission.
Activity Highlight: Self Portraits
You will need:
- Mirror
- Paper
- Drawing materials, such as crayons or markers
Steps:
- Sit down in front of a mirror together and closely observe your reflections. Help your child to notice as many things about their face as they can.
- Talk about the things that they like and what they like about themselves. Brainstorm how they could include some of that information in their self portrait.
Other ideas:
- Draw a picture of yourself in a favorite place or with some of your favorite things around you.
- Draw a picture of how you would look if you were your favorite animal.
- Choose the superhero power that you would like to have. Draw a picture of yourself as that superhero.
What are we learning?
Learning about oneself is a lifelong skill. Giving your child early tools to recognize and express what they know about who they are, what they like, and what they can imagine themselves to be is a way to ground them with strong ideas about their place in the world.
Listening to their self definition and helping them to creatively represent it communicates that you value their thoughts and respect their ideas.
- Social-Emotional Development: helping your child to talk about what is important to them and what they like about themselves promotes a positive sense of self.
- Cognitive Development: close observation and translation of what they notice onto a page supports symbolic thinking.
- Physical Development; drawing from life helps children to develop strong eye to hand coordination.
- Mathematical Development: helping your child break down the shapes of their face into simpler shapes is a mathematical skill known as abstraction, which is a key problem solving skill.
