Spring into Action!

As the weather starts to get a little warmer, it's a great time to reevaluate your daily routine with your children! Use this time of year to jumpstart a daily movement plan that will get you ready for summer play. Slipping in some exercise, some walking, balancing, throwing, catching - it will all help your child's overall development! After a long winter of sitting inside, it's just what we all need!

Start by inserting some basics, such as running in place or jumping jacks, in between everyday tasks. It will rev up your energy level and boost your mood! Have a catch with a squishy ball or stuffed toy! Visit a playground or plan a playdate that is a no video/no game time for action :) Pull out some chalk and make some hopscotch or maze patterns to use for more fun!

Find some pockets of time where you can get in a daily walk - even if it's only for a few minutes. While you're walking, you can cover a whole day's worth of early childhood curriculum.
Children are fascinated by the tiniest things in nature ... a bud opening on a tree, an ant crawling on the sidewalk, a ladybug on a leaf ... use this time to help your child connect with nature! (science)  Work on counting as you cover the distance down the sidewalk! (math) Practice songs and clapping to different patterns while you walk - find objects that begin with each letter of the alphabet! (literacy)

And, best of all .... have fun!

Mix Up Some Colors!

Make learning about colors fun!

Learning about primary colors - blue, red and yellow - and the colors they make when blended together - is so much fun for little ones! Get some washable paints and some large paper and get ready to mix and make!

There are some wonderful books that illustrate for children just how to do some color mixing! Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh, is an adorable tale about white mice who jump into different paint colors and end up mixing them up on paper, thereby creating new colors through blending. Your child will love the cute little mice and the patterns they make - it is a perfect way to explain how blending certain colors results in new colors.


Let your little "mice" replicate the story by mixing up some paint colors of their own. Playing with paint and paper is fun, messy and will have your little ones exploring - and learning! You can use fingers, brushes, sponges or even fabric scraps as your tools ... try each primary color first and then see what happens when a dot of something else enters the picture! Let your child direct the learning and be ready for some terrific artwork! Have extra paper on hand for when "experiments" turn everything brown or gray and your child wants to try again :)

Another book on the same theme is Color Dance by Ann Jonas. Children will be fascinated by the swirls and twirls of the colored scarves in this lovely picture book! Make sure to linger over each illustration and have your child retell the story to you to reinforce the learning. Explore some fun with movement by trying out some scarves of your own ... then, look for colorful fabric scraps or bits of ribbon to make a color collage!

Have fun!

Welcome the Season!

Welcome the holiday season with a decorated door ornament! Use craft sticks (we used six long ones and two short ones) and some glue to design and form your door. Children can paint them or use them in their natural color. Practice some counting and small motor skills while you create!

Choose your hardware - a bright button may be a doorknob or perhaps some fun foam or a "jewel." Attach with a bit of glue and then choose how you want to decorate your door. We used a bit of "tree" formed into a circle with a snip of chenille stick. Perhaps you have some scrapbooking bits or a tiny holiday charm ... make it special!

When you're all done, attach a hanger of wire or ribbon to hang it on a tree or door knob - beautiful!

This could make an adorable gift for someone special - or a keepsake for years to come! Enjoy!

Searching for Santa!

As it gets closer and closer to Christmas, you may be hearing more and more about SANTA! That means that it's time to make plans to search for Santa in the night sky!

Take a cardboard tube and help your child wrap it in a festive color of construction paper. Glue or tape in place. Then, your child can get creative with how to decorate this hand-made telescope - with some festive touches! Set out paper pieces, foam decorations, glitter or stickers of their choice to personalize it - it's now a Santascope!

Attach a little printed note like this:

"On Christmas Eve when Santa
Goes flying through the night,
Look for his sleigh and reindeer -
What a wonderful sight!"

Your child can search the sky for the Jolly Old Elf right before bedtime .... maybe they'll catch a glimpse!

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Make a Rudolph ornament while waiting for Christmas to get here!

You'll need some craft sticks and sheets of foam (tan and white), two googly eyes and a red nose made from a pompom or another piece of foam, red this time. First, glue two craft sticks in a V pattern and then use another to go stright across, about a half-inch below the tops of the other sticks. To complete the antlers, add two more craft sticks in a wider V.  Finally, add the foam pieces: a large piece of tan for the face, small piece of white for the forehead, two tiny ears - then add the nose and eyes.

Add a little string or ribbon and Rudolph is ready to hang around and help you decorate!

Have fun!

Books to Love: "The Great Gracie Chase" by Cynthia Rylant

"The Great Gracie Chase: Stop That Dog!" written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Mark Teague is a wonderful book for kids of all ages. Your little ones will fall in love with Gracie, an adorable, good dog who loves living in her quiet house. Then, her life gets disrupted by some painters and Gracie decides to leave, beginning a chain reaction of people who follow her to get her back home.

Well-written books can be so much fun to read - sometimes, again and again! Action-packed books like "The Great Gracie Chase," filled with great images and descriptive language, make it so easy for children to visualize the characters and action taking place.

Kids will love the bright pictures and funny portraits of the various characters who join in the chase. Try some of these activities:

• After reading, try to recall the order of the appearance of the various characters and record them in a list - see how many you can get before checking back in the book.

• Talk about the parts of the story - the beginning, the middle, the end - and about how the chase keeps building, adding people and then narrowing down to the end, like a cycle.

• Children can draw their favorite parts for retelling. Introduce transition words like first, next, then and finally, to help them put their stories in order.

• Trace a black and white picture of Gracie for little ones to color and make into a Gracie puppet, attaching a craft stick for a handle. 

Have fun with it!

Make a Thankful Book

Make a "Thankful" book, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Choose whether you want it to be a book of "Things" or a book of "People," then get started with an easy template of "I am thankful for ..." pages. 

If you decide on an "I am Thankful for People" book, help your child come up with a list of important people, like friends, cousins, grandparents, etc. Then, your child can take, find or draw pictures to assemble into a little book. Don't forget to complete it with labels or captions about each picture.

To make a "Thankful" book of Things, use the same idea, generate a list and add pictures ... I'll bet some favorite toys, pastimes and special things would make a nice book that your child would love to "read" again and again!

A book of their own will be a great resource for your child who is just starting to ask about names of important people in his/her life or how to write something like "legos," "animals" or "books." Use it as a resource for learning the spelling of loved ones' names and as a writing tool for early writers.

Super simple and super fun!

Have fun - and, be thankful!

Pumpkin Fun!

Pumpkin season is a fun time for art projects! You can make sponge print pumpkins, paper scrap pumpkins, even paint some paper bag 3-D pumpkins. Your little ones love to make projects using crayons, markers, etc.

Here's something else to try - a felt play kit!!

You will need a shoebox, some felt pieces, scissors and glue ... and your imagination! Line the inside of the shoe box lid with a rectangle of colored felt. This will be the background for any scenes your child puts together. For a "Five Little Pumpkins" scene, cut some long, skinny pieces and some shorter pieces out of a dark colored felt to form a fence. Then perch your little orange pumpkins all along the fence and take them off one-at-a-time to the tune of:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"
The third one said "But I don't care!"
The fourth one said, "Let's run, run, run!"
The fifth one said, "Let's have some fun!"
Then .... whoosh went the wind and OUT went the light,
And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!

Your child will love the flexibility of the fabric and how the felt  pieces cling to the background ... and you can play with it over and over! Keep your kit around long after pumpkin season and fill it with different shapes - you and your child can come up with many uses for this play set! Use it for story telling, language development, patterns, etc.

Have fun!