Learning ideas, games, activities, books, and concepts for the child too young for school!
One of my best finds is a free PBS program for kindergarteners to second graders that teaches them Spanish. I am always wary of those kinds of things. Can you really learn a language by watching a show? I must admit, the George Public Broadcasting system did this right with Salsa Spanish.Salsa @GPB What is
Every week, on laundry day, my daughter loved to climb under a laundry basket and pretend she is Hermit Crab from the Eric Carle picture book, A House for Hermit Crab. She asked for a coral or a starfish to put on her “house.” Then, she got to meet her cousin’s new pet hermit crabs! She
If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’ll know I love incorporating learning moments into familiar parts of our lives, especially reading favorite picture books. Here are some of our favorite preschool picture book lessons. Some of these book-inspired preschool lessons I’ve blogged about. To see the picture book preschool activities
It’s never too early to nurture a toddler. Shapes is the perfect toddler learning subject. When I’m busy teaching, I set up a “busy box” that I can take with me when I teach as well as great picture books and other activities. A Shapes Busy Box ExampleWhen we are going out and about, I try
As a toddler, my daughter was obsessed with ducks. She called herself “Baby Duck” and if I did not call her that, she corrected me. I was, of course, “Mama Duck.” So it was a perfect time for finding all the books we can find about ducks. Below I’ve included a huge list of books. Some
There is stage each of my kids has enjoyed, between two and three, when they truly loved Pete the Cat’s I Love My White Shoes! Since it is so fun to sing the song and toddlers are just starting to recognize colors, it’s a perfect stage for beginning color recognition and color matching. Toddler Color
My daughter loves making noise and she is fascinated by musical instruments. When I saw a Toob of musical instruments, I knew she’d love to play with them. Edit your caption text hereA QUIET Instruments Busy BagUsing the toob toys, I made an instruments busy bag. It’s not a noisy one, such as you would expect. Rather,
To prepare for Earth Day and Arbor Day, we learned about conserving trees by recycling paper in our kitchen. Reading The Great Paper Caper, a silly mystery story, prompted this fun, hands-on science lesson. A Conservation Story in The Great Paper CaperBefore we made our paper, we read a fun story about trees, the need for conservation,
My preschooler loves to play with our frog and bear counters to practice color and size sorting! Sorting and separating rainbow counters or rainbow bear counters helps preschoolers with color and shape discrimination, and playing with physical counters or beads encourages fine motor skills development. The ones I have are also beads, so my daughter loves stringing
In the book In the Snow by Huy Voun Lee, Xiao Ming and his mother walk in newly fallen snow and his mother shows him Chinese characters by writing them in the snow. They discuss how the characters look like the items they are describing. Despite our lack of snow in Chicagoland this season,we made our
Cooking pancakes provides plenty of learning opportunities for young kids! One of the favorite things my kids love to cook is pancakes, of course! I believe it was one of the first things I actively encouraged my kids to take part of in the kitchen, simply because it’s fun to help stir, it’s exciting to
Here’s something to add to your Christmas sensory activities list for your toddler! Gather the textures of the first nativity in a basket, as based on a favorite Christmas Carol. My daughter loves sensory activities and this Nativity textures activity encourages exploration, as well as developing a growing understanding of the story of the first
