Hello List, 1) A no cost activity is dancing with your child. Put on music and push the chairs back and enjoy yourself. Let your children teach you how to be silly.
2) Animate Winnie the Pooh stories by reading all the characters in the various voices. 3) Get a roll of paper and put it on the floor and draw all sorts of things. You don't have to be an artist in your kids eyes, just attentive and enjoying being with them. 4) Get friends and family members to tape record stories for the kids to follow along. Then get the kids head phones and let them enjoy it while you get a breather. Even if they are too little to know when to turn the pages, they will like listening to the sounds of the voices. You may want to get them tapes of various kinds of music, like classical, etc., so they can start having an appreciation for it. Might help before they become teenagers and begin listening only to that "loud music" as we parents may call it. 5) LEGOs are great! Ask Eric Takeshita :). He never outgrew his fascination with them. They sat on his desk at our NRP office. Also, get dominos. Teach them how to line them up to keep them busy for a while. They may learn to focus and harness the power of concentration 6) Play Doh. Just make sure they don't eat it. 7) Finger puppet shows in their rooms before bedtime. When they are almost tired out but not quite asleep, turn of the lights and have "show time." Only do it in the dark so they get sleepy, and have those constellations that glow too. The show can even be about the planet (when they can grasp that). They will (hopefully) ease into sleep and not have those "afraid of the dark blues." You can even teach them how to make those shapes. My kids were never afraid of the dark or had monsters under their beds because I did not talk about such nonsense as the bogeyman, nor allow them to view things which might scare them to death later. 8) You have to be a child with your children when they are that little at times. That way they can begin to be reassured that growing up to be an adult is not as frightening a thing as we sometimes imagine. List Challenge: As far back as you can possibly remember what is a fun no cost activity you did growing up that you could do with your own child/children? Pamela Taylor (Today - Clearwater, FL /Next Week - Minneapolis) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jim Mork Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 1:13 PM To: Discussion Forum Subject: [Mpls] Kids, Trains, Freeways, David Brauer: Michael's child-entertainment question does point up how "poor" Minneapolis is compared to St. Paul in the obvious amenities. Huh? Or in unimaginative parents. I know kids whose parents and relatives found plenty of things to do with them. The question is really What is really appropriate for a 2-year-old? The fact is that it takes hardly anything to entertain them. When I babysat kids that age, I would take them to a park to play in sand and swing. What is this notion that you have to start at TWO buying things? You think a 2-year-old even appreciates that sort of thing. And a parent who gets in the consumption mode that early will only have himself to blame later on. ===== Jim Mork (Cooper Neighborhood) _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
