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Make a mobile with your child.

What You Need:

• Old magazines or newspapers with pictures
• Blunt, child-sized scissors
• Regular scissors (for adult use only)
• White glue (such as Elmer’s Glue®**) or glue stick
• Thick paper or thin cardboard
• Disposable chopsticks, separated
• Yarn
• Tape

What To Do:

1. Help your child find and cut out four pictures of a type of food, for example four vegetables, from magazines and newspapers.
2. Show him how to glue the pictures onto a sheet of thick paper or a piece of thin cardboard.
3. Ask your child to name each vegetable and its color or size. Ask him to describe how he thinks each vegetable looks, smells, tastes, and feels.
4. Cut around the vegetable pictures with the adult scissors and tape a piece of yarn to the back of each picture.
5. Tie the other end of the yarn about an inch or two from the tips of each chopstick. Each chopstick will have two vegetable pictures hanging from it, one on each end.
6. Cross the chopsticks over each other and tie the crossed section together with a longer piece of yarn.
7. Find a doorway or window where you can hang your child’s mobile. Watch it move with the breeze. Talk about how the wind is making it move. Observe it on windy and calm days and talk about the differences in the mobile’s movement on those days.

VARIATIONS:
1. Prepare some of the vegetables that appear on the mobile and encourage your child to
taste them. For example, try a tasty treat such as a carrot and raisin salad, a tomato sandwich, or celery with peanut butter. Have your child describe the size, color, shape, taste, smell, or texture of each food item. Ask him questions about each vegetable, which one he likes and why.

2. Instead of finding foods, help your child choose four pictures of other things such as
animals and talk about them.

! Safety Alert: Adult-size scissors are not safe for young preschoolers. Let your child practice cutting with blunt, child-sized scissors. Monitor your child as he uses the scissors. If you do not have appropriate scissors or the paper is too thick for your child to cut, do the cutting yourself. Discuss the dangers of moving around with a pair of scissors in hand.

** Use of brand names is for informational purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the Learning to Grow Project.

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