Help your child make a poster of different strategies she can use when waiting her turn.
Materials
- Large poster or paper
- Markers or crayons
Directions
- Talk with your child about a time when she needed to wait for something, such as a turn on the swings or a turn to play with a favorite toy. Talk about how she felt, providing her with vocabulary words, such as angry or frustrated to describe her different emotions.
- Have a conversation about how waiting can be hard and takes skill and practice, just like it was hard for Cookie Monster to wait to eat his cookies on Sesame Street. Together, think of different strategies to help her wait for something next time, such as counting, singing a favorite song, or pretending it is something else.
- Together create a poster listing these different strategies. Encourage your child to draw pictures next to the words. Hang the poster in an easy to see place!
Talk About It
Next time your child has to wait for something, ask her what strategy she plans on using to help her exert greater self-control. How did the strategy help the time go by quickly?
Take It Further
Together make oatmeal cookies and practice waiting for the cookies to bake! Talk about how long the cookies will be in the oven and things you can do together while waiting, baking, and cooling. Then enjoy a delicious and yummy "sometimes" snack!
