Take Your Child to Work Day — April 28, 2022 — will no doubt look different for you and your child this year. Whether you’re still working from home or you’re back in the office but have COVID restrictions in place, how can you help your child feel involved in Take Your Child to Work Day?

As a parent, you are your child’s greatest inspiration. Take time to reflect on what work has looked like the past couple years, what your child learned about your career, and what they hope to do in their future. Ask your child, “What are you interested in?” or “What problem in the world do you want to solve?” Thought-provoking questions can lead to wonderfully rich conversations.

Pick out a few of the activities below to try together on April 28, and explain how the same skills are used by adults every day in their careers. We hope these activities inspire your child’s imagination about how they can contribute to the world — both now and in the future.

• For the future natural scientists, biologists, and chemists, explore water, create a geyser, discover osmosis, make raisins dance, create a lemon volcano, or think about weather changes.
• Does your child want to be a town manager or city planner? Play a game of Red Light, Green Light, create a roadway/hiking path, or try to build a box city.
• Learning about animals and how to care for them can lead to a career as a veterinarian or zoologist. Start by learning how to be kind to animals, play animal pretend, and go on a virtual trip to a farm in springtime.
• Future computer programmers will enjoy coding their own traffic sign.
• Practice the skills of a teacher or human/social services worker by being a helper, creating paper doll friends, and talking about how families work and play together. Visit Doing Good Together for more ideas on community service activities to do with your child.
• Budding CEOs will need strong leadership and communication skills. They can practice with a cooperative game of Flip the Blanket.
• A future healthcare worker can play doctor’s office or read a story about being brave and caring for others.
• Discuss careers in gardening or agriculture while you make an easy window garden or after watching a video about planting from food.
• Future CFOs, bankers, economists, or accountants can sharpen their math skills with egg carton math and then play a math card game or skip count hopscotch.
• Engineers, architects, and construction workers need many skills — try out a box project challenge, build a house, and learn about shapes in architecture. You can also listen to a story about a young girl who is passionate about engineering and construction.
• Future chefs and bakers will enjoy making tacos, energy bites, or inventing their own special recipe!
• Let your future artist try out lots of different mediums by doing an acrylic pour, creating homemade finger paint, learning painting techniques, or building a sculpture.
• Musicians and composers can make their own box guitar or tambourine and compose a song of their own.
• Aspiring attorneys, judges, politicians, and other civic leaders can learn how words can make change.