365 Days of Creative Play (Paperback)

by Sheila Ellison (Author), Judith Anne Gray (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Why are children so active? Because they want to learn! And here are 365 simple but stimulating activities for parents, grandparents and child care providers that can turn a child's need for action into chances for learning, by themselves, or with others in the family. Sometimes it's hard for adults to come up with the right activities: here is your cookbook! Recommended.

Review
Parents struggling to discover new playtime ideas can finally relax. Now there is a solution for every day in the year. -- Parenting Magazine

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.; 3 edition (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570710295
• ISBN-13: 978-1570710292
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #325,565 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chock full of creative and stimulating ideas for every child, June 28, 1999

By	"superevie" (Matthews, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews

365 Days of Creative Play is a wonderfully complete guidebook to children's play. As the founder and creator of Familes-First, a web site for all families, I found this book especially important and worthwhile. Not only are the crafts, recipes, and play ideas fun they are also educational ( the kids don't have to know this part ; )). I have strongly recommended this book to both my online parent's and craft's groups and all folks who either have children or work with them.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT book!, June 6, 2001

By	Gowie "gowie" (CO USA) - See all my reviews

This is a wonderful book! I have 5 days to plan a week's worth of activities for 10 children between the ages of 1 and 5. A friend loaned me this book. The ideas are extremely varied, some indoor, some outdoor, some can be adapted for either.

The ideas seem to be in random order through the book, and the index at the back lists what category they fall under, i.e., art, craft, construction, dance, environment, family, games, etc. All ideas can be done with household items that you already have, paper plates, glue, crayons, and many ideas do not require any supplies. All of the ideas are presented in a learning-through-play manner, not academically as in other books like this. After looking through this book, I found literally dozens of ideas, and my stress level has gone down considerably!

The one thing I would change about the book--I did not find any warnings regarding the 2? or so ideas that involved balloons, and there were minimal warnings on ideas that included small objects that young children might swallow. People will have to rely on their own common sense (easier for some than others).

Overall, a superb book, and I'm thrilled to have discovered it just when I needed it the most!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Both Interesting & Practical, August 11, 2000

By	JNg (Hong Kong Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

I bought serveral books on children's creative play recenlty, and I found this one the most useful one and very practical. The games are interesting, easy to play and children can learn from these exercises. Although different countries have different cultures, but as an Asian, I still found this book practical, and both my daughter and myself enjoyed very much by going through these plays. My daughter now is almost three, I am sure this book will still be very useful to me for the years to come.