Name of Activity:.Shopping for Presents

Category:. Art Smart

Props: catalogues of various sorts, (including furniture, clothes, jewelry, appliances, video equipment), glue stick, scissors, and outline of a large empty present on a large piece of paper.

Your Role: Travel guide and historian

Directions: Ask your child to recall events in which they received a present. Encourage him or her to recall the event and to describe the present in detail. Now explain that it is their turn to "purchase" a present for somebody who just happens to like the exact same things as your child does. Your child's job is to look through the catalogues, make selections, cut out appropriate presents, and past them on the present sheet.

Goals for You: Your job is to help your child recall presents that he or she has liked (memory images), to project him or herself into the world of the catalogue (create memory images), and to create an art piece that can satisfy him or her. You may need to assist in recall, creation of imagination images, but probably not in the art project aspect of the activity.

Goals for Children: Your child is permitted to be as acquisitive as possible in his or her imagination. He or she also gets to manipulate art materials to create something with personal meaning.

Possible Strategy:

What to say "Tell me about your favorite presents. What about them did you like?"

What to do Encourage your child to recall these presents through vivid memory images.

Possible Shaping:

What to say "Now you are going to go shopping through your imagination and through your fingertips. We need to shop for presents for a boy/girl who is your age and likes exactly the same kinds of things you like. Let's pick out as much stuff as we can and glue it on this large present box. Try to imagine that this child is just like you."

What to do:

Possible Ending:

What to say: "Boy, I am sure this boy/girl would love this present. Can you picture that boy/girl using all this stuff?"

What to do: Make sure that you write the child's name on the picture and explain how you will be saving it.

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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