PPP: Child Growth & Development || Learning Activities || Encourage children to be who they want to be

Learning Activities
Authors: Jodi Putnam with Judith A. Myers-Walls and Dee Love

The following activities will encourage children to be who they want to be no matter what other people tell them they “should be.” Make this list of activities available to parents. It can help parents to encourage both their boys and their girls to be creative, helpful, strong, nurturing, and considerate of others.

1. Take children on field trips to see men and women in a variety of jobs.
Visit a hospital with male and female doctors. Go to a construction site where both men and women are working. Go to a
dance recital in which both men and women are dancing.

2. Let children choose their own clothes from choices you select.
Set out several different kinds of outfits. Let your child pick which one he/she would like to wear.

3. Encourage children to make their own toys.
Give your child a collection of old boxes, paper, yarn, sheets, rags, glue, scissors, tape, markers, buttons. Encourage
them to make their own toys. Refrigerator boxes make the BEST forts!

4. Role play situations. Let boys play girl characters and girls play boy characters.
    When you dress up in play clothes and act out a nursery rhyme or play, let the children play both the male and the female
    characters.

5. Look through catalogs. Let the children tell you if the advertisements are for boys or
    girls. Ask the children:
     • Why do you think the advertisement is aimed at boys or girls?
     • Could boys and girls both use the item that is being advertised?
     • How could the company change the ad so that it attracts both boys and girls?
     • Look at the clothes advertised for boys and girls. How are they similar or different? Which clothes they would like to
       wear? Why?

Go to:   • Resources

For more information, contact Judith A. Myers-Walls, PhD, CFLE at jmyerswa@purdue.edu or at 765-494-2959

Please feel free to link to, print off, redistribute, or reprint any of these materials as long as the original credits remain intact.

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Learning Activities Authors: Jodi Putnam with Judith A. Myers-Walls and Dee Love

Learning Activities
Authors: Jodi Putnam with Judith A. Myers-Walls and Dee Love