This back to school season is an exciting one for me. My husband and I have made the choice to homeschool our preschooler rather than send her to preschool 2 days a week. We did send our oldest to preschool for two mornings a week when he was 4 ½, but our situation is different now-where we live, how much preschool costs in our area, and the needs of our children. Each of us … [Read more...]
Spell Your Name Hopscotch Game: Active Learning Series
When we combine movement with learning, kids absorb so much. Especially for preschool aged children, when we can get them actively moving their bodies in order to learn new skills, the learning feels like fun. This Spell Your Name Hopscotch Game takes the challenge of spelling and turns it into a fun active learning activity for preschoolers and early elementary-aged … [Read more...]
100+ Popular Toddler Activities
This list of easy to set up, inexpensive toddler activities is a huge resource for parents of toddlers! I absolutely love this age because learning happens so fast, but the endless energy can lead my toddlers to explore in all the wrong places. These 100+ toddler activities cover your children from 13 months to 3 years old...and almost all can be done with preschoolers too! … [Read more...]
20+ Toddler Activities to do at Home
Toddlers. They can be tricky! Not quite ready for sitting down and doing focused learning activities, this group is active, always exploring and needs their own fun activities to keep them (I don't like the term busy) investigating the right things rather than getting into the wrong ones. It does not take complicated activities to get toddlers interested in fun play. If you … [Read more...]
One Item Activity: Tissue Paper
I love sharing activities that are super easy, really frugal, and perfect for different ages. Many of us have children in different ages and stages, so finding activities that they all can do together-for any length of time-is very helpful. It is so fun watching all four of my kids play together even though they are in very different developmental stages-school age, preschool, … [Read more...]
Indoor Hopscotch Game
Getting enough time to play outside is essential to my children maintaining positive behavior...and let's be honest, it helps my behavior too! This indoor hopscotch game (made from a yoga mat) is a reusable activity that helps kids move to burn energy even when indoors. Moving our whole bodies helps us get exercise, burn off excess energy (which, frankly, as a mom I do not … [Read more...]
DIY Jumbo Building Blocks
This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure. Kids of all ages love building structures to use in their pretend and dramatic play scenarios. This is an almost-free way for you to make DIY jumbo building blocks for older infants, toddlers, preschoolers and even school-age kids. All you need are: empty shoe boxes wrapping paper packaging tape … [Read more...]
Patty Shukla Kids Music
It can be tough to get kids moving when you are stuck inside. Patty Shukla Kids Music is a solution for you! This will get your little ones moving-and even getting exercise-while inside. I used these when I was too sick to really keep up with my kids, or when they needed to be inside due to bad weather. … [Read more...]
Homemade Summer Fun with Kids
My children are ‘outdoor kids’, large motor machines. They need to get outside in order to keep their spirits in balance-I need that too. Thankfully summer fun with kids provides a multitude of outdoor time for fun-and learning. Having children in multiple age groups allows me the challenge to adapt activities for different skill levels. Some summer climates limit how … [Read more...]
Make Your Own Bean Bags
I have been wanting to buy my children bean bags for a while and never got to it. DIY bean bags turned out to fit my budget and they were pretty easy to make. I have a CD of bean bag toss songs that teach following directions that I used with my own preschool classes when I was teaching. It was a great indoor activity in the heat of Summer, rainy days or the cold of … [Read more...]