agic Truck Ride
Take your child on a magic truck ride all over the world—without his leaving his bed. The only fuel you need to drive this truck is your imaginations. Though it isn't necessary, you can wear some kind of hat—even just a simple bill cap—and tell him it's your truck driver's hat. Then get him onto his bed, settled in for his nap, and tell him to close his eyes so he can see the pictures in his mind more clearly;
Now describe the truck pulling away from the curb (suitable vroom, vroom, roarrrrr noises would help here), and then describe the magic truck leaving the ground and flying up into the air! Describe, at first, your house, which the truck is now hovering over, and then your street, including familiar details.
Then, as the magic truck reaches the end of the street, let the views become more fantastic. Instead of your flying over the familiar next block of houses and ordinary trees, describe trees with purple leaves or orange leaves with yellow polka dots or perhaps with candy canes or lollipops growing on them. Or perhaps, if it's winter in reality, the trees in the next block are in full bloom and warmed by a hot, summery sun.
That next block might be filled with houses made of spun sugar or with palaces, or perhaps there's a mountain or the ocean.
You can end the truck ride after describing just a few more scenes, or you can go further with it, but at some point if your child is not yet asleep tell him, “Now you're going to drive the truck yourself until you fall asleep. Just lie there and think of all the sights you want to see from the truck's windows. Sleep well.”
The magic truck can take you and your child on many rides, seeing different sights each time—or returning over and over to some of the ones your child has loved the most in past expeditions.
The wacky helicopter is a “cousin” to the magic truck (see page 13), but while the magic truck will take your child to places where she sees fantastic sights, the wacky helicopter will take her places where she has wonderful adventures.
Each time the helicopter takes off (suitable noises, please: whappa whappa whappa whappa), your child is off on another adventure. Will she meet friendly beings from outer space? Will she meet Bigfoot and learn the “monster” is really a shy and scared soul? Will she be transported back to the time of Robin Hood and help Robin outwit the Sheriff of Nottingham? Will she be part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and win fame for her rope tricks? Or join the circus? Or be the creator of some wonderful new invention for which the world will thank her and award her a medal? Or meet up with one of her favorite book or story characters and have a quiet conversation with Hansel or Chicken Little or Pinocchio?
All it takes is a ride in the Wacky Helicopter—and a good imagination. Well, two good imaginations: yours and hers.
lternate Endings
This activity is very simple: Read a story to your child or tell her an old favorite you know by heart. Then ask her “Suppose…” and set up a change in the storyline: Suppose the slipper had fit some other girl before the prince got to Cinderella. Suppose the witch's oven didn't work (or was too small for Hansel and Gretel to fit into). Suppose the wolf had found a way to knock down the third little pig's house after being unable to huff and puff it down. What does your child think would have happened then?
Read (or tell) a familiar story to your child, one he's heard plenty of times before. Stop at several crucial parts in the story. Each time you stop, ask “What happened next? Do you remember?”
When he remembers, praise him. If he tells the story differently than it really goes, don't tell him he's wrong; just say, “Oh, I like the way you tell it. And what happened next?”
You can get the story back on track gently or you can give up on telling him the usual version and simply let him run away with it.
In this story game, which requires creativity on your part, your child chooses an object—any object. It can be something you have in your home, something she's seen somewhere else, or something she's heard about. Then you have to make up a story about that object.
It doesn't have to be a long or complicated story but use your imagination and make the story more than a few sentences long.
Variation: For a change of pace, you pick the object and let your child make up the story.
This activity can carry over from one naptime to another and another, but it requires a bit of prep the first time you do it. Even before naptime, ask your child to dream up a character and say you will tell him a story about the character. Ask him to tell you about the character in advance. If you want to get the child more involved, ask him to draw a picture of the character. You need to know the character's name and as much about him or her as possible. Is he or she a kid, a bunny, a police officer or firefighter, a dinosaur or dragon, a princess or prince, a soldier?
Now, when you tell him it's naptime and he should get into bed, add, “And, don't forget, I'm going to tell you a story about [name of character the child has invented].”
Get the child settled on his bed, perhaps under a blanket or special nap quilt, and begin to spin your yarn. It can be long or brief. It doesn't have to be Newbery-prizeworthy material. It just has to “star” the character he dreamed up.
And from now on, whenever you want to give him a little extra reward or bribe him into napping more willingly, you can tell him a story about his favorite character.
This is a serial story, not a cereal story, so you won't be bringing milk and sugar to bed with your child at naptime—but you will be bringing your imagination. You'll probably also want to do some advance planning though it is possible to “wing it.”
For this activity, you want to write a story in advance. Not word for word, written down, but at least general thoughts of who the characters are and what's going to happen to them. You want the story to have at least four “cliffhangers.”
On Day One of the story—let's say Monday—you put your child in for her nap and tell her the story. Stop the story in the middle, at a cliffhanger point. It doesn't have to be a throat-gripping, heart-stopping cliffhanger; in fact, it's better if it isn't. It can be as mild a cliffhanger as, “When Jeffrey got up onto the carousel, he could hardly believe who he saw sitting on the big, gold horse!”
Who did Jeffrey see? Your child won't find out till tomorrow, though you can remind her a couple of times on Tuesday morning that you're going to continue the story when she goes in for her nap. And true to your word, you will. Although she'll find out on Tuesday who Jeffrey saw when he got onto the carousel, you're going to end Tuesday's story at another cliffhanger point.