Name of Activity:. Safari

Category:. Adventure/Journey

Props: A canteen, telescope, whistle belt, and a flashlight, and other safari tools to help establish the journey

Your Role: Travel guide, historian, and coach.

Directions: Show your child all the interesting and novel props. Explain that the two of you are going to go on an exciting adventure to find animals never seen by them before. Encourage them to use the props and together the two of you can go on a very exciting adventure.

Goals for You: Your job is to present these props so that they are enticing and help your child create imagination images to stimulate this journey. Your goal is also to question your child so that the proposed safari journey becomes clear and specific.

Goals for Children: Your child's task is to create a potential safari in his or her mind's eye and then to go on this safari together with you.

Possible Strategy:

What to say "Here are some very interesting props. Let's look at them. Have you ever seen anything like these before? Do they help you think of how they could be used or where we could go?"

What to do Encourage your child to experiment with these props as well as to talk about whether they have ever seen props like this.

Possible Shaping:

What to say "I really like what you are doing. Let's go to all these places. Ready?"

What to do: If your child has no ideas, suggest some safari-like places. Even if his or her ideas are not safari-like, go where the props lead you.

Possible Ending:

What to say: "I had fun. Do you think you will remember our journey? If you ever see a props like this in a story or a video, remember what we did."

What to do: Put away the props carefully.

Material on this site created by Helane S. Rosenberg, Ph.D. and Yakov M. Epstein, Ph.D. in conjunction with their forthcoming book titled Play for Success. All material on this site is copyrighted and may not be reproduced or cited without written permission of Helane S. Rosenberg, Ph.D.. Dr. Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education of Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Epstein is Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science of Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, NJ. He is also Director of the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education of Rutgers University.

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