Set aside time for reading every day with your baby — even if it's only a few minutes. Babies love books with bright colors, baby faces, flaps, textures or simple activities. You might find yourself reading the same book over and over, which is normal and good, they learn from repetition. Babies love when you add facial expressions, sound effects and voices for various characters. My advice is to set aside a special time every day in your schedule for storytime as ... Read more...
Learning about Diwali with Kids
Here's a peek at our family learning about Diwali with our kids. These Diwali activities are simple and informational as you explore the festival of lights with your child. Happy Diwali! Learning about the cultures our parents come from is part of a bilingual family. My husband and I both try our best to expose our children to both our faiths, Hinduism and Christianity. My husband is from India where Hindus celebrate Diwali along with many other festivals. Diwali, the Festival of ... Read more...
Halloween Story Writing
Tips for teaching kids to learn to write this Halloween... use stickers! Here's how to encourage your child to write their own story with Halloween stickers. I loved Amanda's Afterschool Express Post last week about teaching writing with beginning writers. Her little one expresses herself so freely in writing, I love it! My daughter is also in Kindergarten but is more reserved with her writing and needs a little encouragement. She really wants us to help her spell the words and we're ... Read more...
Little Hands that Cook with Books: Let’s Bake a Cake
Here's what our cooking class looked like today before the fun began...thought you might like a peek! It was my birthday during cooking class this week so I thought it was fitting that we learned how to make a Cake. The girls were so excited to bake their very own cake in their very own bowl and baking dish. We read this adorable book about Max and Ruby making a cake called Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells. Once we got started we took a look at the recipe and noticed that there was lots of ... Read more...
How to Encourage Kindergarten Writing
Writing is an important part of early learning. As a former kindergarten teacher, children progress rapidly throughout the year. From pictures and stick people to 5 sentence paragraphs at the end of the year. What does kindergarten writing look like? Here are a few kindergarten writing samples and tips for How to Encourage Kindergarten Writing. Affiliate links to products in this post. What 5 year old writing looks like: Reading and writing is connected. If we want our ... Read more...
Growing Texas 40 Peas
Each year I challenge our family to choose a new vegetable to plant in our garden. Someone recommended that I try Growing Texas 40 Peas. Knowing NOTHING about them, I planted a short row. Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. How did Growing Texas 40 Peas go? This Southern Style Cowpea only does well in warm weather and is drought tolerant – so if I don’t get to watering, all is still good. They grew well, so tall in fact, that I needed to add some ... Read more...
Make a Collage with toddlers
Make a collage with black and orange this fall. Better yet - make a few and turn your toddler's projects into a kid-made book. How to Make a Collage with Toddlers Does your toddler resist craft projects, but you still want to do tot time lessons with them? When crafting or having "lessons" with toddlers, I have found that it is best to have open ended projects that allow them to practice age-appropriate skills; ripping, painting, cutting, gluing and sticking. In small doses, these ... Read more...
Baby Friendly Hotel Fun
I thought it might be fun to share with you some tricks of the trade that I’ve learned over the years as a mother of 3. I need to remind myself every once in a while that I need to make plans for what to do with my baby so I thought blogging about it might help both you and me become active parents with our actively learning babies. This past week we were on vacation which can be challenging enough on your own but with a baby you have to get a little creative in hotel ... Read more...
Spider Shirt!
It's fun to make cute holiday shirts for your kids. As soon as I set my eyes on this DIY project, I knew I needed to this Spider Web Shirt for my daughter. She is fascinated by spiders and the webs that they make. Spider Web Shirt Inspiration If you haven't stopped by to see Pink and Green Mama's art projects for littles, I highly recommend it! Her art projects are fantastic and the pictures are beautiful. I was so inspired by her yesterday post Spider Web Halloween Shirt that I went to ... Read more...
Using Environmental Print to Teach a Second Language
Does your family speak more than one language? Make sure to fill your house with print! Using environmental print to teach a second language can be beneficial in strengthening their ability to read in their second (or third) language. What is Using Environmental Print to Teach a Second Language? Environmental print is the words children see all around them. It is the signs and symbols that surround them and become familiar to young readers. Children become so familiar with these ... Read more...