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You do not need a special kit, lesson plan, or long block of time to play Sesame Street with your child. Pick a familiar character or feeling, offer one simple prompt, and let your child decide what happens next. Building with blocks, dancing, making art, pretending, playing a guessing game, reading, or using an official digital activity can all become Sesame Street play.
Sesame Workshop’s guidance treats its activity ideas as invitations rather than a required sequence. Follow your child’s interest, change the game when attention shifts, and use whatever is safe and available in the moment.
Start with a character, a problem, or a place
Begin with one sentence that gives the play a Sesame Street flavor without dictating the whole story. You might say, “Elmo’s friends are opening a pretend bakery,” “Cookie Monster needs help sorting snacks,” or “A visitor is waiting at the park.” Then pause. Your child can choose the character, setting, materials, and ending.
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For a younger child, demonstrate one action and invite imitation: make a block tower, tap a rhythm, or give a toy a voice. For a child who wants more control, ask an open question instead of offering several instructions: “What could this become?” or “What should our character do next?” There is no need to correct an invented answer. The shared conversation is the game.
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Keep the setup deliberately small. A few blocks, crayons, paper, washable clay, dress-up clothes, a ball, or household containers are enough. Put away fragile, sharp, or very small items before play, and stay close when materials or outdoor movement require supervision.
Seven screen-free ways to play
Build a Sesame Street place
Use blocks or safe household items to create a street, store, park, bus, or home. Add a simple challenge: a bridge must connect two buildings, a friend needs a quiet corner, or a delivery has to reach the right door. Let your child decide whether the structure is realistic or wonderfully impossible.
Building can stay quiet and focused, or it can become pretend play. Ask your child to name the people who live there, make sound effects for vehicles, or move a character through the finished scene. If the tower falls, treat that as part of the story: “The wind knocked it over. How can our friends rebuild?”
Take the characters outside
A walk, park visit, or backyard game can supply the setting. Bounce a ball back and forth, make a short obstacle course, or play a running game in which everyone moves like a different character. On a walk, look for shapes, colors, signs, or sounds that could belong in a Sesame Street story.
Keep outdoor play within the child’s ability and the location’s safety rules. Choose a clear area, supervise near streets or water, and stop when the child is tired, overheated, or uncomfortable. The point is shared movement and imagination, not a performance or a distance target.
Make art with an open ending
Offer paper and crayons, washable paint, clay, or a child-safe digital drawing tool. Instead of asking for a perfect picture of a named character, invite a choice: “Draw the place our friends visit today,” “Make a new hat for a character,” or “What does a happy sound look like?”
Let the child change materials or abandon the picture. You can narrate what you notice without judging it: “I see three big circles and a long blue line.” If you create together, take turns adding one detail so neither person controls the whole page. Keep art supplies labeled, non-toxic, and appropriate for the child, and supervise clay or any material that could be mouthed.
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Dress up and pretend
Use ordinary clothes, hats, scarves, or bags to assemble a silly outfit. Sesame Workshop’s Let’s Play! guidance specifically encourages putting on funny outfits together. A towel can become a cape, a shirt can become a shopkeeper’s apron, and a paper badge can identify a new neighborhood helper.
After dressing up, give the outfit a purpose. Is the character delivering mail, welcoming visitors, fixing a pretend problem, or performing a song? Allow your child to change roles or remove an item whenever they wish. Avoid tying a costume to a fixed personality; a child can be any character and can invent a new one.
Dance, wiggle, and jump
Put on a favorite song and invite each person to choose a movement. Try a freeze dance, a slow-motion parade, a wiggle contest with no winner, or a sequence in which one person leads and everyone copies. You can connect movements to a story: characters cross a pretend bridge, tiptoe past a sleeping giant, and celebrate when they arrive.
Clear the floor, move breakable objects, and adapt jumps or spins for the available space. A seated child can clap, tap, sway, or move a puppet. Stop the music for water, a rest, or a new idea rather than trying to keep the activity going past the child’s interest.
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Play a guessing or tabletop game
For a no-cost guessing game, hide a familiar object under a cloth and offer clues about its color, shape, sound, or use. Reverse the roles so your child gives the clues. You can also play “Who am I?” with a character, animal, or household item acted out through movement or sound.
A simple board game is another legitimate game-time option. Choose a game with rules your child can understand, shorten the route, or play cooperatively by moving one shared piece. Explain one rule, demonstrate a turn, and add the next rule only when it helps. A preschool board game is an optional purchase, not a requirement, and Sesame Workshop’s general activity suggestion does not identify a particular commercial game, license, or endorsement.
Let the child choose
Choice can be the whole activity. Write or draw several possibilities—build, dance, draw, pretend, walk, guess, or read—on slips of paper. Your child can close their eyes and pick one, or fill in blank spaces with family-created games. If the selected idea does not fit the weather, space, or energy level, keep the choice but adapt the format: dance with fingers at the table, build with pillows on the floor, or turn an outdoor game into an indoor movement story.
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Turn household objects into story starters
The empty cereal-box prompt
Sesame Workshop’s Let’s Play! article suggests presenting an empty cereal box and asking what it could become. Try the prompt without supplying an answer: “What could this box be?” It might become a bus, a mailbox, a puppet theater, a robot, or a tiny apartment. Ask what the object needs next, then help only with safe cutting, taping, or decorating.
Make the box part of a problem to solve. A character may need a vehicle to reach a friend, a shop may need a sign, or a puppet may need a door. If your child loses interest in construction, keep the box and shift to storytelling. The same object can change roles several times.
Make a character from routine objects
A spoon, sock, paper bag, or cushion can become a character when you give it a name, voice, and goal. Invite your child to choose one quality—shy, curious, hungry, tired, excited—and act out how the character handles an ordinary event. Keep the story flexible: the character can ask for help, try again, or change its mind.
Do not use food containers that still contain crumbs, staples, sharp edges, or cleaning-product residue. Wash and dry reusable items, remove loose parts, and discard anything damaged.
Fit play to the moment you already have
Rainy-day or indoor play
Choose a tabletop activity, drawing, a small building challenge, or a pretend trip to a Sesame Street location. A “weather reporter” can look out the window, describe the rain, and decide what each character needs. If the child wants movement, create a route between cushions and furniture, leaving a clear path and an adult nearby.
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Sesame Workshop’s Playing Is Learning activity uses situations such as waiting at a doctor’s office as prompts for play. Use a quiet guessing game, a finger-play story, or “spot three circles” with objects the child can see. Keep voices and movement appropriate for the setting, and stop immediately when staff call your name.
At a park or on a neighborhood walk
Turn the surroundings into observation play: find something rough and something smooth, notice a bird sound, or imagine who uses a bench after you leave. Let your child lead the route when practical. A short walk can be complete when the child has had enough; it does not need a fixed duration or destination.
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During everyday routines
Sesame Workshop’s parenting resources emphasize that routines can contain learning opportunities. While washing hands, getting dressed, cooking, or tidying, invite a character voice, a counting song, a sorting challenge, or a two-line story. Keep the real task first and make the pretend layer optional. If the routine is becoming stressful, drop the game and finish the task plainly.
Car rides, bedtime, and weekends
The Things We Do Together printable encourages recording familiar moments such as car songs, bedtime stories, neighborhood walks, and weekend pancakes. You can make a family list of these moments and let your child choose one to reenact with toys or drawings. A bedtime version should be calm and brief: a character says goodnight to three objects, or everyone adds one sentence to a quiet story.
Use official Sesame Street resources when they help
Games and storybooks
Sesame Workshop’s official games-and-storybooks collection includes activities involving choices, counting, observation, reasoning, emotional skills, and interactive stories. Select one that matches what your child is already interested in, then stay available to talk, act out a scene, or stop when the activity no longer feels enjoyable.
Learning Through Play ideas
The official Learning Through Play material presents memory games, word play, puzzles, and play cards as possible formats. You can use the formats without purchasing a set: make pairs from paper, draw picture cards, think of rhyming words, or create a short matching puzzle. Change the difficulty by using fewer cards, giving a clue, or playing cooperatively.
The Things We Do Together activity
Use the together-time book activity to notice what your family already enjoys. Add drawings or dictated sentences about a walk, a song in the car, a story before bed, or a weekend meal. Looking back at these entries can provide the next play prompt without adding new equipment.
Optional digital play with the official app
Sesame Workshop describes its official Sesame Street app as free and ad-free, with videos and educational games in a kid-safe environment. Its stated audience includes toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners. App features, content, and availability can change, so check the current listing for your device and region rather than relying on an old compatibility claim.
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Make digital play more social by sitting with your child, asking what a character is doing, and inviting a screen-to-real-world follow-up. After a counting game, count socks; after a story, act out one scene; after a song, dance for one verse. If your child wants to stop, switch to a screen-free option. The app is an optional path alongside household play, outdoor time, books, and invented games.
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Choose an activity by the moment
| When you need… | Try… | Materials | Play style |
|---|---|---|---|
| A no-cost, screen-free start | Build, pretend, draw, or make up a guessing game | Blocks, paper, clothes, or safe household items | Child-led imagination |
| Movement and fresh air | Ball play, a walk, or a character obstacle course | Ball or no equipment | Active and adaptable |
| A quieter tabletop option | Memory pairs, word play, puzzles, or a simple board game | Paper-made cards, a puzzle, or an optional purchased game | Structured or cooperative |
| A short wait | Clues, finger play, or noticing shapes and sounds | Usually none | Portable and low-noise |
| A guided digital activity | Official app videos or educational games | Compatible device and the app | Digital, with caregiver participation |
| A family memory | Record a song, walk, bedtime story, or meal in the together-time book | Printable or paper and crayons | Reflective and collaborative |
Use the table as a decision aid, not a schedule. A child who begins with a puzzle may want to act out the characters, and a planned outdoor game may become a quiet conversation when energy changes.
A flexible 15-minute play routine
- Invite. Name one character, object, or setting and offer a single prompt, such as “What could this box become?”
- Follow. Watch what your child does first. Copy, narrate, or add one small idea instead of taking over.
- Extend. Introduce a problem, movement, sound, or new role only when the child seems ready for it.
- Pause. Offer water, a quiet moment, or a choice to switch activities. Stopping is allowed.
- Close. Let the child decide whether to save the construction, photograph the art, put materials away, or tell someone what happened.
The routine can last five minutes or much longer. Its purpose is to create a clear beginning and an easy exit, not to enforce a play quota. Sesame Workshop’s Let’s Play! message is to make time to play together each day; the form and length can vary with family life.
Adapt play when it is not working
“My child says no.”
Accept the refusal and reduce the demand. Leave the materials nearby, offer a choice between two unrelated activities, or join the child’s current play without mentioning Sesame Street. Interest may return later, and play is not successful only when a planned idea is completed.
The activity becomes too competitive
Change the goal from winning to completing a shared mission. Use one team, let players cooperate against a timer they can ignore, or remove scorekeeping. In a guessing game, celebrate a creative clue rather than speed.
The child wants to repeat one action
Repetition can be the child’s preferred way to explore. Keep the action and vary one small element—a new sound, color, character, or location—only if the child welcomes it. Do not force a new lesson into a game that is working.
The game becomes frustrating
Make the next step easier: use fewer pieces, shorten the route, demonstrate a turn, or provide a choice. Name the feeling without promising an outcome: “That was disappointing. We can try a different rule or stop.” A break is a valid resolution.
The screen is the only option the child wants
Stay calm and avoid presenting the app as a reward or punishment. Sit together for the digital activity, then offer a connected offline action—a song, drawing, or pretend scene. If the transition is difficult, give a clear ending cue and let the child help choose what happens next.
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- Supervise outdoor movement, climbing, water, traffic areas, and any activity involving tools or household containers.
- Use age-appropriate, non-toxic art materials and keep small parts, cords, staples, and sharp edges away from children who may mouth objects.
- Check that costumes do not restrict breathing, vision, walking, or access to an adult.
- Respect sensory preferences. Offer quieter sounds, softer materials, less crowded movement, or a way to watch before joining.
- Let children change roles, choose a different character, or invent a character unrelated to the familiar cast.
- Keep the adult’s language descriptive and curious rather than testing. Questions such as “What happens next?” leave room for many correct answers.
The most useful Sesame Street play is the version your child can enter, change, and leave comfortably. A box can become a bus, a walk can become a story, a board game can become cooperative, and an official app can be one optional prompt among many. Follow the child’s lead, keep the materials simple, and return to shared play whenever the moment allows.
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