Get ready and in the spirit of Independence Day by making these easy tissue paper fireworks. Decorate your house for July 4th with these easy craft from heyletsmakestuff.com! All you need is red, white and blue tissue paper, scissors and a stapler!

All you need to make your own cymbals is: 2 paper plates, string, scissors, and coins or metal washers and some supplies to decorate, such as, paint, markers, and crayons!

Click here for full instructions and a video of Corinne from Boston Children's Museum jamming out with her homemade cybals!

No Small Matter is the first feature documentary to explore the most overlooked, underestimated, and powerful force for change in America today: early childhood education.

Join them for the first-ever “Virtual Yellow Room Half-Hour Variety Hour” for kids, featuring the film’s superstar preschool teacher, Rachel Giannini, an appearance by comedian Jack McBrayer, a Q&A with Sesame Workshop, a read-aloud with gold-medal figure skater and children’s author Kristi Yamaguchi, and a musical performance by Noam Pikelny of Punch Brothers.

Check out these early learning resources and sign up for the free Basics Insights text messaging program. Every text you read from Basics Insights, activity you try, or video you watch earns you 1 point! Collect 4 points to enter the raffle—you can enter every week! Resources available in English and Spanish.

Ask your child what they want to eat, read, play and more this summer and have them fill out and color this fun booklet from thebarefootteacher.com!

All you need for this craft is paper, makers or paint, scissors, glue and a Popsicle stick! For detailed instructions, click here. Happy Father's Day!

Join the princesses from Starlight Entertainment every Tuesday morning at 11:30 on their Facebook Page for a FREE Story Time and Sing Along. This series will continue every week until we are all allowed to leave our castles once again, in efforts to bring a little bit of magic to your family.

Visit our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/starlight.events.ma/

For all of the most up-to-date information on this series!

Father’s Day is right around the corner, moms! Our friends at Boston Baby Nurse and Nanny have sponsored this resource for YOU — FREE printable gifts for all the wonderful dads in your life!

Headspace is currently free for all students at a Boston Public School and for those not at BPS, a free trial is available. With Headspace, kids (and their parents) can enjoy fun, engaging activities that teach them the basics of mindfulness. They’ll practice breathing exercises, visualizations and even try some focus-based meditation. Of course, different exercises work best for different ages so we’ve customized the sessions for three age groups: 5 and under, 6-8 and 9-12. To start your free trial, click here.

Another amazing resource from the Boston Children's Museum: "At this time, we know that our young children need comfort and a safe place to express their feelings more than ever. Yoga is an excellent way to explore our feelings in times when we are unable to find the right words to make them known. Try out this fun Feelings Yoga activity with your kids — it may benefit you, too, as we are all dealing with complicated emotions right now."

Every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM ET, enjoy a read-aloud with everyday leaders and heroes read special books on Hullabaloo Book's Instagram page.

On Wednesday June 3, Broadway actress Carmen Ruby Floyd reads Hello Hello. Additionally, Carmen discusses how she is doing and feels about these uncertain times in our country.

Hello, Hello has joyous, rhythmic text and exuberant art and this book encourage readers to delight in nature's infinite differences and to look for and marvel at its gorgeous similarities.

Use this book to discuss the following with your children:

1) How are the animals on each page similar? different?

2) Think about a particular classmate or family member. How are you similar? different?

3) Create your own drawings that show two people/animals/objects that are similar in some ways and different in other ways!

Brain buzzing? Too busy to bee still? Join Dr. Frank Sileo for Read Out Loud as he shares BEE CALM, an introduction to yoga for kids. So, “Find a quiet place. Do a pose. Take a deep breath and see how it goes!” In this companion book to Bee Still: An Invitation to Meditation, Bentley Bee loves to fly around and visit his friends in the garden. One day, he notices all of them in unusual poses. What could it bee?

Bentley’s friends teach him several beginning yoga poses including Mountain, Chair, Airplane, Cobra, and more. Readers will love to follow Bentley and try the poses themselves as he gets buzzing all about yoga in this kid-friendly introduction. Includes a Note to Parents and Caregivers with suggestions for introducing children to yoga, and instructions for the poses in the story.

After listening to the story, try some kids yoga below!

One of my kids' favorite activities from the Boston Children's Museum has been the Fun with Shapes! activity. Triangles, circles, squares — oh my! Explore the different shapes with Faith in today's video. Afterward, see if you can find objects in your house of each shape and trace them on paper to make a design! Share your designs with us on social media using #BostonChildrensMuseum!

How to make this Starfish Craft:

1. Print the starfish template from Danielle’s Place here (scroll down towards the end of the page to where it says Paper Plate Starfish Craft for Kids). There are 2 different shapes!

2. Cut around the outlines and then trace the star shape on to either a paper plate or cardstock.

3. Fold along where the directions call for you to make a crease. This will make your starfish 3-dimensional!

4. Paint in colors of choice.

5. Add any other decorations like sequins, glitter, and so on. I happened to have Barilla Pastina on hand which are teeny star-shaped pasta that I let the kids use to decorate their craft with.

If the above e inc activities are too advanced for your toddler or preschooler, this is an activity that the whole family can do together. Bonus: younger kids can practice important fine motor skills with a water dropper!

The activity is simple: Guess how many drops of water will fit on a penny. Then, use a water dropper to place one drop at a time on the penny until the drops fall off of the penny. Which child guessed closed to the actual number of drops of water? Does each penny hold the same number of drops of water?

Read Memorial Day Surprise with your children to learn more about Memorial Day. The cute book is about Marco and Mama who are going to see the Memorial Day parade. On their way, they pass Marco's grandfather's house. They usually stop to see Grandfather, but today Mama is in a rush because she has promised Marco a surprise. Marco can't imagine what the surprise might be. Could it be the marching band? The fire engines? The candy tossed to the crowd by a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty? Mama promises that it will be a better surprise than candy. As the parade goes by, Marco wishes his grandfather were with him to enjoy it.

Take 10 minutes today to interact with your child in meaningful ways to learn about your child's growth and development. For children ages 0 - 5, the Ages and Stages questionnaire is a wonderful tool to help parents and caregivers answer questions you might have about how your child is learning and growing. The more you know about your child’s growth and development today, the more you can support their future success! You will be asked to answer questions about some things your child can and cannot do. The questionnaire includes questions about your child's communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, and personal social skills.

Click here to complete the ASQ! A member of the Charlestown Family Engagement Team will be in touch after you complete the ASQ to discuss the results and provide associated resources.

Every day, Planet Fitness live-streams workouts at 7 PM ET on their Facebook page. Athletes, such as Tristan Thompson and other celebrities, have been hosting these home work-in sessions. Many of the workouts are geared toward families. Tonight, Wednesday May 13th at 7 PM, David Ortiz of Boston Red Sox fame, will be leading the work-in...try to catch it with the whole family! If you miss it, all of their work-ins are available on the Planet Fitness YouTube channel.

Join us tonight (and every Tuesday in May) to watch Big Joe the Storyteller tell us some interactive children's stories! Each Tuesday in May, Big Joe will be performing for Kennedy Center friends on Zoom at 6:30 p.m. If you are interested, please email ckielbasa@kennedycenter.org or cgalvin@kennedycenter.org to get the Zoom link and password.

Did you see Michelle Obama's live reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar yesterday on PBS Kids? If not, check it out today. After listening to the story with your child, get them talking about the book with the following questions:

• What did the caterpillar eat first? last?

• How long was the caterpillar in a cocoon? How do you know?

• How did the caterpillar feel after eating a lot of food? Have you ever eaten too much? How did it make you feel?

• Ask your child to create a bar graph showing how much of eat food the hungry caterpillar ate!

Did you start the Children's Book Week Challenge that we posted yesterday? How many boxes have you checked off so far?

To continue with Children's Book Week today, why don't you try the Comic Book Activity provided by every child a reader! "Each activity in this comic book activity kit is a comic story, started, but not finished by these geniuses. You complete the comics with your illustrations and your words. Blank panels follow each activity, so you can continue with their characters, or make up ones of your own.

At the end of the kit, you can draw from a comics script. And there’s space to make a comic, from start to finish! Just base it around the Children’s Book Week slogan, Read Now ● Read Forever. "

Did you miss "Mondays with Michelle!" this past week? If you did, don't worry, the recordings are all available on YouTube. Today, we suggest watching Michelle read one of her favorite children’s books, "There's a Dragon in Your Book" written by Tom Fletcher and illustrated by Greg Abbott.

Another Toilet Paper Roll Craft: FIRE BREATHING DRAGON!!

After listening to There's a Dragon in Your Book with Michelle Obama, make your own fire breathing dragon. All you need is a toilet paper roll, some green, red and orange construction paper and a glue stick! If you have googly eyes and pom poms, you can decorate your dragon too!

beafunmum.com provides instructions for how to make your own sock bean bag and also provides 11 different ideas for games to play with your new beanbag!

Matt Heaton performs at many of the Boston Public libraries so your children are sure to recognize him and his music.

According to his website, "Matt Heaton believes music for kids can be entertaining for both children AND parents. His songs are a mix of rockabilly, surf, american roots and Irish traditional music, delivered with a wry sense of humor and a sincere sense of fun."

Every weekday morning, Matt Heaton has a show on his Facebook page at 10 AM..check him out with your kids today!

For the past several weeks, Joe, from the Body Coach TV, has been posting daily workouts for kids on his Youtube channel. He gets the kids moving vigorously in his 30 minute live videos and also keeps them interested acting silly. Tune in live at 9 a.m. or visit P.E. with Joe on Youtube for his recorded videos.

Questions to Discuss after listening to the book:

1) What does it mean to be the queen of something? Do you consider yourself the queen or king of anything? If so, what?

2) What is something you have worked really hard on or worked really hard to do? How did it feel to work hard?

3) Do you think a heavy or light hula-hoop will spin better? Or does it not matter? If you have a hula-hoop, try it!

Essem Art Studio has posted a free Virtual Art Lab to help children create mixed media Easter Eggs out of supplies you have around the house (cardboard, old magazines, ribbon, etc.).

One great thing about the toilet paper situation is you have accumulated a bunch of tools for arts and craft projects. The image to the left is a fun and easy project for you and your young child to enjoy for endless hours.

Materials Needed: Empty paper towel/toilet paper rolls, straws or pipe cleaners, scissors, markers, and a hole puncher.

• Take the roll from a toilet paper/ paper towel and cut holes throughout the roll.

• Take different colored markers and color around the holes.

• Take straws or pipe cleaners to match the colors.

• Have your child match the