Learning ideas, games, activities, books, and concepts for the child too young for school!
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
In pondering ways to make learning kinetic for my active one, I decided to use the idea of a Christmas tree number hop, with a Christmas tree outlined on the floor. Our simple Christmas tree only needed ornaments with the numbers on them. I made our number recognition practice into a Christmas dance party! When the music
If there is one story that my kids loved to return to over and over again when they were little, it was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I added these favorite Goldilocks characters to kindergarten math activities, making hands-on learning fun and connecting our math lessons in with our story reading activities.Counting, putting numbers in
In anticipation of the upcoming holiday, we read The Very First Thanksgiving Day. I made my preschool daughter a simple puppet template related to the traditional first Thanksgiving dinner with the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags. Although she is young, playing with First Thanksgiving Story Puppets is a nice start to understanding the meaning of the
On a hot summer day, what does one do for “Princess Preschool”? We play with ice, just like Elsa, from frozen! Building with ice is not easy. My daughter wanted to make an Ice Princess’ castle, which wasn’t really possible, but it sure is fun to try your hand in stacking the sliding blocks during
For a time, my preschooler struggled with counting to 10. Those upper numbers just could not seem to go in order! She also did not yet recognize the numerals and could not quite comprehend 1-to-1 correspondence. But, she loves hands-on fun, so I decided to make her activity mats for counting with gold coins to
My little kids always loved rainbows! What a perfect subject for the month of March, too, since we “celebrate” St. Patrick’s Day. My toddler “Rainbow” busy box includes a cut-and-paste craft, color sorts, rainbow books, and other fun items related to rainbows! My main activity for my toddler was a simple cut-and-paste rainbow color sort craft
This time of year, themed activities are starting to be all about Valentine’s Day! My favorite workbox activity for my preschoolers this time of year have been my Valentine’s Day Counting Cards to use with manipulative: puff balls, candy pieces, and so forth! About the Valentine’s Day Counting CardsThese are pretty simple: simply print the
When the kids come inside from playing in the snow, I always let them have some hot cocoa to help them warm up. I decided to sneak a tiny bit of learning in on a day when it was too yucky to go outside! We practiced “marshmallow math” at the kitchen table. Marshmallow counting was perfect
When my daughter was more consistent at getting to the number 10 when counting on her own, and yet numbers even higher than that seem incomprehensible to her, we decided to grasp the concept of 100, a high number, by making a paper clip counting 100 train together. The picture book Crossing by Philip Booth
