ASQ Activities for Children 60-66 Months Old

Make a nature collage. Collect leaves, pebbles, and small sticks from outside and glue them on a piece of cardboard or stiff paper. (Cereal and cracker boxes can be cut up and used as cardboard.)	Practice writing first names of friends, toys, and relatives. Your child may need to trace the letters of these names at first. Be sure to write in large print letters.	Encourage dramatic play. Help your child act out his or her favorite nursery rhyme, cartoon, or story. Use large, old clothes for costumes.	Play simple ball games such as kickball. Use a large (8"-12") ball, and slowly roll it toward your child. See if your child can kick the ball and run to "first base."	When reading stories to your child, let her make up the ending; or retell favorite stories with "silly" new endings that she makes up.
Let your child help you with simple cooking tasks such as mashing potatoes, making cheese sandwiches, and fixing a bowl of cereal. Afterward, see if she can tell you the order that you followed to cook and mash the potatoes or to get the bread out of the cupboard and put the cheese on it.	Play "20 Questions." Think of an animal. Let your child ask 20 yes/no questions about the animal until he guesses what animal it is. (You may need to help him ask yes/no questions at first.) Now let your child choose an animal and you ask the 20 questions. You can also use other categories such as food, toys, and people.	You can play "license plate count-up" in the car or on the bus. Look for a license plate that begins with a 1. Then try to find other plates that begin with 2,3,4, and so forth, up to 10. When your child can play "count-up," play "count-down," starting with a license plate beginning with 9, then 8, 7, 6, and so forth, down to 1.	Practice pretend play or pantomime. Here are some things to act out: 1) eating hot pizza with stringy cheese; 2) winning a race; 3) finding a giant spider; 4) walking in thick, sticky mud; and 5) making footprints in wet sand.	Make a simple concentration game with two or three pairs of duplicate playing cards (two king of hearts), or make your own cards out of duplicate pictures or magazine ads. Start with two or three pairs of cards. Turn them face down and mix them up. Let your child turn two cards over and see if they match. If they don't, turn the cards face down again. You can gradually increase to playing with more pairs of cards.
Make an obstacle course either inside or outside your home. You can use cardboard boxes for jumping over or climbing through, broomsticks for laying between chairs for "limbo" (going under), and pillows for walking around. Let your child help lay out the course. After a couple of practice tries, have her complete the obstacle course as quickly as possible. Then try hopping or jumping the course.	After washing hands, practice writing letters and numbers in pudding or thinned, mashed potatoes spread on a cookie sheet or cutting board. Licking fingers is allowed!	Play mystery sock. Put a common household item in a sock. Tie off the top of the sock. Have your child feel the sock and guess what is inside. Take turns guessing what's inside.	Make color rhymes. Take turns rhyming a color and a word: blue, shoe; red, bed; yellow, fellow. You can also rhyme with names (Dad, sad; Jack, sack). Take turns with the rhyming.	Make an "I can read" poster. Cut out names your child can read-fast-food restaurant names, names from cereal cartons, and other foods. You can write your child's name, names of relatives, and names of friends on pieces of paper and put them on the poster. Add to the poster as your child learns to read more names.
Play "what doesn't belong?" Let your child find the word that doesn't belong in a list of six or seven spoken words. The one that doesn't belong can be the word that doesn't rhyme or the word that is from a different category. Some examples are 1) fly, try, by, coat, sigh, my; 2) Sam, is, ram, am, spam, ham; 3) red, orange, purple, green, yellow, beetle; 4) spoon, fork, shirt, pan, spatula, knife. Have your child give three to four words with one that doesn't belong.		Play the "memory" game. Put five or six familiar objects on a table. Have your child close her eyes. Remove one object, and rearrange the rest. Ask your child which object is missing. Take turns finding the missing object.	Make puppets out of ice cream sticks, paper bags, socks, or egg carton cups. Decorate the puppets with yarn, pens, buttons, and colored paper. Make a puppet stage by turning a coffee table or card table on its side and crouching behind the table top. Be the audience while your child puts on a puppet show.	Play the old shell game. Get four cups or glasses that you cannot see through. Find a small ball, object, or edible item such as a raisin or cracker that fits under the cups. Have your child watch as you place the object under one of the cups and move all the cups around. Have your child try to remember which cup the object is under. Have your child take a turn moving the objects while you guess.