NOGGIN HAS SHUT DOWN.

💡Skills: Pretend play helps your child understand and process information. Games like this also help children practice fine motor, math, and language skills. 

Description

The people who help us get the food we need to eat to stay healthy are heroes! Play with your child to explore how food gets onto grocery store shelves, how people find what they need, and how they pay for their food.

Materials 

☑Paper

☑Crayons/Markers

☑Scissors

☑Cardboard Boxes 

☑ Printable (optional)

Set Up 

Here’s how to explain this activity to your child:

• Let’s create our own pretend grocery store to learn more about the community heroes who work in grocery stores and help all of us get the food we eat.

• First, let’s fill our store by drawing foods on paper and then cutting them out. (If you have toy food, use what you have!)

• Next, let’s set up our store on a table or on the floor. We can use some old boxes or other supplies from around home to display the food in our store. If we want, we can make price tags. How much is this bread? The apples? The milk?

• Now, I’ll come and shop. Can you help me find the food on my grocery list?

• Let’s switch. I’ll work at the store and you can be my customer.

Pro Tip:

To simplify this activity for younger kids, go “shopping” in your kitchen together, and pretend to pick one or two items to “buy.” For kids who need a challenge, make pretend money to use to “pay” for the items you buy.

Extend the Learning

Sing the supermarket song with Team Umizoomi, watch Chris O’Dowd read “Arnie the Doughnut” about a tasty treat on Storyline Online, and print to play our supermarket board game!

Words to Use 

• Grocery store – place where you buy food

• Shelves – places where different things (like food or books) are put in stores or homes
  

• Price tag – shows how much something costs 
  

• Customer – someone who buys something
  

• Grocery list – where you write down what you need to buy
  

Extend the Learning: Grocery Heroes

Let’s all sing a supermarket song with Team Umizoomi!

Sing along: 

♪ Supermarket! 

If you got a hungry tummy to feed

Make your list and

Roll down the aisles you’ll find what you need 

Here comes my favorite part

Let’s count the groceries as we empty the cart 

Count with us! 

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 

It’s super fun to sing a supermarket song ♪

You can find Team Umizoomi’s “Super Trip to the Supermarket” streaming in the Noggin app!

Extend the Learning: Grocery Heroes

Description

Print and play this board game with your family or use the printables to make up your own super fun, supermarket game! 

Materials 

☑ Printable

☑ Scissors 

☑ Glue or tape

Instructions

• Cut out the character pieces. Fold up along the base, apply glue to the back of the characters (but not the base), and fold to create double-sided characters pieces.  

• Cut out the dice and follow the instructions on the printable. 

• Cut out all the other game pieces: grocery lists, money, and food.

Game Play:

Each player gets equal amounts of money, and a chance to pick a shopping list.

Each player takes a turn rolling the dice. When they land on a space they get to shop for one item on their list. I.e. List has 2 apples and 1 banana, player lands on apple, banana, and pear tile and decides to pick up either 2 apples or 1 banana during that turn. Each player “shops” by picking up food cards.

Players get to move forward or backward based on what they roll.

When a player reaches the checkout, they can pay for every item they were able to pick up (try charging $1 for every item they’ve collected). 

💡Skills: Asking questions and talking about community heroes helps your child understand your community and build empathy for others. Taking turns helps your child learn about self-control.  

Description

There are so many people who help us every day — from doctors and nurses to police officers to bus drivers to librarians! These are the people who keep us safe and healthy, help us get around, and make our community work. Let’s play a game and think about our community heroes! 

Materials 

☑ Printable (optional)

Set Up 

Here’s how to explain this activity to your child:

• Let’s play a community hero guessing game about the people who help us every day.

• I will think of a community hero in my head. I’ll describe my hero and you can guess! Then you think of a hero and I’ll guess.

• Once we’ve done that, let’s try a new kind of guessing game. I’ll think of a community hero and you can ask me questions to guess. For example, you can ask me, “Does the person wear a uniform?” or “Does the person drive a truck?” or “Does the person work in a school?” and I will answer to give you a clue about my hero. You can guess until you figure out who my hero is!

• Now let’s switch: it’s your turn to think of a community hero and I will guess!

Pro Tip:

If your child needs a bigger challenge, create a community hero book with one page for each hero. Draw a picture of the hero and write about how the hero helps people! If you have a younger child, pick one community hero and talk about what he does and how he helps your family and community.

Extend the Learning

Get up and do the “climb the ladder” dance with the Bubble Guppies, celebrate bus drivers by singing along with our friends at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, and print to play our community heroes guessing game!

Words to Use 

• Community – a group of people who live in the same area
  

• Hero – a courageous person who helps others
  

• Uniform – the clothes someone wears to work
  

• Clue – a hint to help you figure something out
  

Extend the Learning: Community Heroes Guessing Game

Description

Does your community hero wear a hat?  Print, play, and ask questions to guess your opponent’s community hero! This DIY board game is lots of fun for everyone!

Materials 

☑ Printable

☑ Scissors 

☑ Glue

☑ Craft knife (optional)

Instructions

• Glue Board 1 Front and Board 1 Back together (back to back) and when dry, cut around the edges. Repeat this for Board 2 and the cards.   

• Use a craft knife (or scissors)  to cut along the dotted lines on each board template. 

• Cut out the game cards by cutting along the dotted lines. 

Game Play:

After the game boards are set up, it’s time to play! Each player picks a mystery card. Taking turns, each player can ask one “yes” or “no” question about his/her opponent’s mystery person in order to eliminate characters on the board. Players can ask questions until they are ready to guess their opponent’s mystery person.

💡Skills: Writing letters helps children develop literacy skills and pretending helps children understand a delivery person’s job. Making their own mailboxes helps your young hero develop the muscles in their hands and fingers! 

Description

Blue’s Clues’ fans know the power of the mailbox and the delivery people who bring mail and packages to our homes! Work with your little delivery guy or gal to make a mailbox, fill it with handmade letters, and deliver them around home.

Materials 

☑ Empty Box (a shoe box, a tissue box, an empty cracker box, etc.)

☑ Markers, crayons, or pencils

☑ Glue

☑ Paper

☑ Scissors

☑ Printable (optional)

Set Up 

Here’s how to explain this activity to your child:

• Remember the Mailbox in Blues Clues? Let’s create our own mailbox and letters and then deliver them to learn about the amazing mail carriers and delivery people who make sure we get our letters and packages at home!

• First, let’s make a cardboard box into a mailbox. We can use glue, paper, scissors, crayons, and markers to decorate, and cut a hole on the top for the letters.

• Now, let’s fill up the box with homemade letters and packages! I will write a letter to you and you can write one to me. We need to put the name on the outside so that the delivery person knows who should get each letter.

• It’s time to do the deliveries! Let’s make sure that every letter gets to the right person. You’re a delivery hero!

Pro-Tip:

If your child needs an extra challenge, wait a few days for the mailbox to fill up and then deliver all the mail. Make special stamps out of stickers or crayons to put on each letter. Add the address, e.g., “Maria’s room” or “Kitchen.” Or try creating a card using Noggin’s printable mail kit and put it in the mailbox for your real mail delivery person to say thank you. If your child is younger, work together to create one card and deliver it to someone in your home.

Extend the Learning

Print your mailtime kit, get inspired to decorate your mailbox, and sing the “Mail Time” song along with Josh, Joe and Steve!

Words to Use 

• Deliver – to bring something to someone
  

• Package – something wrapped up in a box
  

• Mailbox – where you put letters to send them to someone
  

• Mail Carrier – the person who picks up letters and brings them to the right place
  

• Delivery Person – the person who picks up packages and brings them to the right place
  

Extend the Learning: Special Delivery

One thing that never fails, is that the mailtime song has everyone wagging their tails! Watch Steve, Joe, and Josh sing the mailtime song and dance with kids all the way to your mailbox. 

Sing along: 

♪ Mail time. Mail time, mail time. Mail time! 

Here’s the mail, it never fails 

It makes me want to wag my tail 

When it comes I want to wail 

MAIL! ♪

You can find Blue’s Clues and Blue’s Clues & You! streaming in the Noggin app!

Noggin’s smart schedule is created by our team of experts in early childhood development and education — teachers, parents, and scientists — to help families grow their kids’ hearts, minds, and bodies, every day, through play!

NATURE

This week, explore NATURE from your living room while building language skills and more!

MENTAL HEALTH

May is “Mental Health Awareness Month,” so we’re bringing you simple stress busters for kids! A mindful moment a day can keep stress levels at bay (for you and for your kids).  So get ready to add a mental health-boosting moment into your family’s daily routine — let’s go!

ANIMALS

This week, your child can wake up with animal stretches and doze off at night with “animal tales.” During the day, learn through play with Noggin’s animal guessing game and a virtual field trip to the San Diego Zoo. It’s time to embrace your inner animal!

EARTH DAY

Be an Earth Hero this week in honor of Earth Day with Earth science and recycling for preschoolers! Make your own masterpiece with egg cartons or toilet paper tubes, and even create your own Earth orbit game. Together, we can celebrate the greatest planet in the Solar System as we learn through play, morning, day, and night!

HEROES

This week, we’re learning about everyday HEROES in our communities. Children learn best through repetition, so use these activities throughout the week to boost your little hero’s learning.

INVENTORS

Learn about inventors while building your child’s math, literacy, science, arts, and social-emotional skills! 

MIGHTY HEROES

Calling all heroes! This week, we’re learning about mighty heroes. Every day, we’ll strengthen your child’s science, social-emotional, and literacy powers with stories, songs, super challenges and more!

WOMEN’S HISTORY

We’re posting fun activities to help fuel your child’s growing noggin. This week we’re celebrating wonderful women in history in honor of Women’s History Month.

SPRING

Let’s plant some good seeds this week with do-together activities that will grow kids’ love of science, build their rhyming skills, and help them work out their wiggles with hops and giggles. Spring brings fun things to this week’s smart schedule of activities! 

Extend the Learning: Community Heroes Guessing Game

Get up and dance with the Bubble Guppies as they climb the ladder like firefighters! 

Learn more about community heroes by watching “Fire Fighter Gil to the Rescue” and “The Police Cop-etition” videos now in the Noggin app! 

Extend the Learning: Firefigthers to the Rescue!

When Pickle discovers a fire, he knows just what to do – he calls for help! To put out the fire, kids have to help Blaze transform into a fire-fighting monster truck! Light box, telescoping ladder, and hose make up fire engine Blaze who fearlessly saves the day. 

Watch Blaze’s “Five Alarm Blaze” now in the Noggin app and remind kids that they can be heroes too just by calling for help when needed.