Celebrate “Wear Your Pajamas to Work” Day!
Whether you’ve been wearing pajamas every day of this quarantine or you’ve only been wearing them to bed, April 16 is the day to Wear Your Pajamas to Work! A silly holiday, indeed, but a day to explore llamas in pajamas, breakfast food, and physical challenges while putting on those pjs! Below are activities that all have a Pajama Day theme. These activities include things that will help your child develop fine and gross motor skills, problem-solving and engineering skills, and can help them engage in cooperative play, while fostering creativity and perseverance. Each theme also comes with recommended literature and movie connections. Feel free to throw in your own activities that might relate, and don’t forget to post your results to social media and tag @discoverymuse to share with everyone else!
Art Activity/Fine Motor Activity – Design New Pajamas
For this activity, you’ll need coloring supplies, some paper, and your imagination.
Directions
- Design a new pair of pajamas for yourself. What colors will they be? Striped? Polka Dot? Animal print? What style will they be? Button up, onesie, dress, shorts? Will they have any special abilities or powers? Can they double as an alarm clock, come with a back scratcher or act as a sibling repellent?
- Create an advertisement for your new pajamas. Make sure you think about the slogan for your jammies – try to make it something catchy. You can even include a song about your design!
- If you have access to fabric, felt or old clothes that can be cut up, make a pair of pajamas for one of your action figures, stuffed animals or dolls. Make sure to bestow the new pajamas with special powers, or at least have a fashion show to let them model their new outfits!
Science Experiment – Making Pancakes!
Do you know what makes pancakes so delicious? Maybe it’s magic, or maybe it’s science. Probably it’s science. Let’s test it out!
- Find a recipe for pancakes. Most recipes have flour, sugar, milk, eggs, and baking powder. These ingredients mixed together make just the right combination to create yummy, fluffy pancakes. Miss an ingredient or add the wrong amount and the combination can be disastrous. The milk and flour make the batter, but the egg keeps it together. The baking powder helps it rise, adding all those bubbles on top and little air pockets inside. The sugar (and any other additions like butter or salt) give it flavor.
- When the ingredients are mixed together, some are solids, like the flour and sugar, and some are liquids, like the milk and eggs. When combining them, you get a thick liquid. After mixing, allow this liquid to sit for a few moments and observe. You will notice bubbles start to rise to the surface (and pop).
- Add the liquid pancake mix to a hot griddle or pan and observe again. The liquid is bubbling much more, and is starting to solidify.
- Use a spatula (this is a simple machine that acts like a lever) to pick up the pancake and flip it to the uncooked side. Observe how your liquid pancake has changed to a solid pancake by the addition of heat! This is a phase change. The pancake mixture has also gone through a chemical change, changing from individual ingredients into a completely different product.
Physical Activity – Pajama Exercises
Get some of those wiggles out while practicing balance, strengthening muscles, relying on your senses, and playing around with pajamas!
- Challenge your balance: Try standing on one foot and balancing while putting on your pants and then shirt. Try timing yourself to see how long you can stay up on one foot or how fast you can complete the challenge. Be careful not to fall down or into something.
- Change your position: Try putting on your pajamas while in downward dog pose (hands on the ground and feet on the ground, butt in the air) or reverse plank. Staying in that position, move your arms and legs to help you wiggle your jammies on! This will work on balance and arm/leg strength.
- Do it upside down: sit on a couch or chair upside down with your feet in the air and see if you can put your pajamas on. This activity will use core strength as you will have to hold up your legs and chest using mostly your abdominal muscles.
- Try it blindfolded: Close your eyes and try using your sense of touch to put your pajamas on. This will require you to feel around to figure out which holes are for your arms, legs or head. It will also challenge your child’s proprioception – their ability to sense their body in space.
Conversation Starters and Research Questions
- What kind of pajamas did your family wear as children? What do they wear now?
- What kinds of pajamas did people wear 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 200 years ago?
- What other things come with pajama-wearing? Think about slippers, robes and blankets. Who has the coolest collection?
- Imagine explaining pajamas to an alien. What would you tell them about your “sleeping costume?”
Videos and Websites
- Encyclopedia Reading about the History of Pajamas
- Fun Facts about Pajamas – did you know originally footed pjs were meant for adults?!
Movie/Literature Connection:
Because we know you’re stuck at home with limited access to movies and books, we tried to compile a list that connects to today’s theme that you might already have in your collection or be able to access online. These include:
Movies:
- Monsters, Inc
- Bedknobs and Broomsticks
- Bedtime Stories
- Max and Ruby’s Pajama Party
- Peter Pan
Books (click the links in each title to go directly to a read-aloud video!):
- Pyjama Day by Robert Munsch
- Llama, Llama, Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
- Piggies in Pajamas by Michelle Meadows
- Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton
- Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
- Pajama Pirates by Andrew Kramer
- The Cat’s Pajamas by Wallace Edwards
- Fancy Nancy Pajama Day by Jane O’Connor
- What You Never Knew About Beds, Bedrooms & Pajamas by Patricia Lauber
