Ages 3-5

Girl smiling and guessing what's in a bowl with her hands while blindfolded - game

How To Be Silly And Boost Mindfulness At The Same Time!

Here’s a game I love to enhance mindfulness, brain power and at the same time get some great laughs out of your kids! The good news it requires very little “stuff” to make this game fun. Like most of the dramatic play tools I can offer you, this game can spark your child’s creativity using things you already have on hand. I call it “Test Your Touch!”

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Jocelyn sitting with kids as they clean up putting things away in basket

How To Make Clean Up Fun

Using positivity and playfulness you can transform even the most annoying task of clean up, into a game! Watch this short video I made about the Clean-up Game!  I use this tactic in my classrooms and in my living room.  Learn about positive discipline techniques to make cleaning up more fun.    “Children are incontrovertibly

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Story time becomes playtime, Books are games

Make Reading A Game With These Simple Tools

Soup up your story time: turn your books into games when you do reading the Child’s Play way! One of the perks of growing up with actor-parents is that story time was…awesome. My mom and dad picked great books, threw themselves into the dialogue, lifted up the most dramatic moments and relished the act of reading.

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Jocelyn with a group of kids jumping and laughing

Tips On Getting Cozy With Your Kids

It is a rainy-snowy weekend for us in New York and I have just learned a new word:  Hygee It’s Danish, but I’d like to start working it into my English.  Pronounced “hoo-ga” – it is more a feeling than a word and is purportedly impossible to translate.  But let’s say it roughly means: “a feeling

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Photo of toys and games that inspire creativity and communication

6 Toys That Inspire Creativity And Communication

Are you fielding requests for a hard-to-get-hatchimal? That’s all well and good, but it’s important to add toys under the tree or next to the menorah that can provide some lasting creative impact in your child’s life.  These six toys are springboards into dramatic play.  They also support language development and dialogue surrounding feelings.  Because

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Jocelyn sitting on floor holding microphone for small boy dressed as a dinosaur roaring into the mic

Freeing The Voice Through Play

To free the voice is to free the person – Kristin Linklater, Master  Freeing Voice Teacher Since my casts of Jungle Book Kids and The Witches, have their shows this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about Baloo’s advice to Mowgli. “Go ahead, give me a big bear growl…Right from your toes. GRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.” (there are

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The Polar Express book cover

Six Holiday Books You Want To Read With Your Kids

The holiday books are an amazing opportunity to reflect on family, charity and compassion.  These books all explore these themes in different ways – some comical, some with adventure.  I also love them because they tie in with the seasonal weather all around us and make snuggling under a blanket with hot-cocoa all the more

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Group of kids playing in the dark with flashlights

Toys (You Already Have) For Awesome Indoor Play

“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.” – Carl Jung I will never cease to be amazed by the creativity of the parents I know.   Yesterday, I went to three playgrounds before 12:00 with Nathaniel.

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Two girls laughing while playing the feather balance game

Boost Concentration And Curiosity: Play This Game – Feather Balance!

“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment. –Carol Dweck, Mindset In my call-back for the Grad Acting program at NYU, a teacher, in all seriousness, asked us to feather balance a feather on our hand.  I was thinking, wait, don’t you want me to like

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