Phone a Friend

🔅 Recommended Daytime Activity

How do Josh and Blue receive calls from Steve and Joe?  Here’s a clue… Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone 144 years ago to help people talk to each other. The telephone changed the way people communicate. Thanks for doing your part, you sure are smart, Mr. Bell!

Description

Look at Blue’s friend using a rotary phone in the picture above! This is a phone that people used before cell phones. It has a circle with holes for your fingers- when you turn the circle, it dials the number! Let’s use our phone to make “kindness calls” to cheer up someone we love!

Materials 

☑ Printable (optional)

Set Up 

Here’s how to explain this activity to your child:

• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone to help people talk to each other. Let’s use OUR modern-day phone to make “kindness calls” to someone we care about.

• Let’s think of 3 things to talk about. We could ask questions or talk about new books we’ve read or tell funny jokes.

• Let’s make our first kindness call. Who should we call — a grandparent? A friend?

• Isn’t it amazing that our voices can travel from here to there?

Extend the Learning

Let’s play a game of telephone! Print easy-reader cards for kids and get inspired by watching these Blue’s Clues videos.

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Words to Use 

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• Kindness– friendly, nice
  

• Travel – make a journey
  

• Telephone – a system for transmitting voices over a distance using wire or radio
  

• Communicate – share information
  

Simplify

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Let’s pretend to call each other — using bananas or toy phones — and talk with each other to make each other smile.

Stretch

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Before we have our first kindness call, let’s write down 3 words or pictures to help us remember what we want to say. Let’s try to make one kindness call every day this week to someone we care about.

Why?

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• Reaching out and talking to someone builds language and communication skills
  
• Listening builds empathy — understanding others’ feelings.