It's a Parade!
Create your own holiday floats.
Hover over each Learning Benefit below for a detailed explanation.
Fine Motor Skills
What you need:
- Milly and the Macy's Parade by Shana Corey (optional)
- Shoe boxes
- Hole punch
- Child-safe scissors
- Tissue paper, construction paper, and wrapping paper
- Stuffed animals and/or dolls (if available)
What to do:
- Milly and the Macy's Parade tells a story about a way the tradition of the Thanksgiving Day parade might have started. We do know that it was started in 1924 by immigrants working at the Macy's department store.
- Help your child use shoe boxes to make floats for her own parade. Decorate the floats with tissue paper, wrapping paper, and markers. Your child can also cut people or characters out of construction paper to put on the floats.
- Punch a hole in the front of the shoe box, and thread a string through the hole. Knot it at one end, and your child can use it to pull along the float. She might also want to put stuffed animals or dolls in the floats. Line up the floats for a longer parade, or invite different family members to pull their own floats.
- The workers who started the Macy's parade had come from many different countries. As an extra challenge, use the library or the Internet to find a flag or other symbol of another country. Use it to decorate a float. For instance, your child might make an Italian or a Polish flag out of construction paper and attach it to a float.
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