Boost Listening, Literacy and Laughter
Here’s a great game idea for Thanksgiving table play (OR FAMILY ZOOM), written for us by contributor Jocelyn Greene of Child’s Play NY. Enjoy!
With the impending long weekend and flurries forecasted it’s crucial to have some fun indoor activities at the ready – and ones that even extended family can play. “Story Clap” is a classic theater game we do in Child’s Play NY to spark new ideas about the shows we work on…but I even play it even while walking my son to school. It’s good old-fashioned, screen-free stimulation that you can do around the Thanksgiving table or in the car on the way home from the in-laws.
I love this game because…
It helps work the brain like a muscle. Through playing, kids have to wait their turn and actively listen. Dr. Bronwyn Charlton, of Seedlings Group, tells us about how this game strengthens key executive functioning skills.
Kids learn to trust their instincts since he fun of the game is based on listening and responding versus planning things out ahead of time. I love opportunities to strengthen kid’s ability to be spontaneous and say “Yes…and!”.
It boosts essential literacy skills like sequencing, comprehension, narrative structure and vocabulary.
It requires serious collaboration. Only by everyone agreeing to work together (at Child’s Play NY when we play this we combine all our brains before we start!), will the story make any sense.
You can explore themes and characters that your child already loves. Whether it’s a new mystery of Nate the Great, the prequel to Madeleine or the sequel to Matilda, you can use your child’s literary-loves as a springboard for new playing.
Make sure you designate a clapper (an adult works best at first) who can help start or end the story and guide it from player to player with transitional words like “suddenly”, “until one day” and “finally”. Once the game is in swing, let kids take a turn being the clapper too. Please chime in at Child’s Play in Action and tell me how you played it at your home – pass along any playing pointers to other parents!
Jocelyn Greene is a Brooklyn based educator, director, and mom. With her company, Child’s Play NY, she teaches hundreds of kids a year and partners with the top-tier schools in NYC to bring theater into their classrooms. She is equally joyous adapting fairy tales for 4s as she is staging Shakespeare with the teens, but she mostly loves playing at home with her son. Subscribe to the Child’s Play in Action You Tube channel to never miss a game