@iracreativeengine gave me the idea of drawing a simple stick tree onto which B could press her fingerprints to make a beautiful image. The original post used stamp pads, which turned out great, but because B loves finger paint and we have a ton of it, that’s what I opted to use instead. I 💯 recommend this activity, which took almost no time to prep, but be prepared for an…
Using painter’s tape and @postit notes, we created a giant number line which served as a launching pad for our homemade paper airplanes. ✈️ The children then took turns walking down the number line (reinforcing counting and one-to-one correspondence), and later launching their airplanes from a starting line to see which airplane design would make it the farthest. When we were done, we parked our planes at the…
This week I was invited to be a guest host for #festiveseasonplayideas @festiveseasonplayideas , which has given me so many wonderful holiday activity ideas. One of those happens to be a themed invitation to play tray, which although new to me, seemed both valuable and fun. B loved that I allowed her to mix Play-Doh colors and seemed to enjoy experimenting with items that I had never included in her…
If you know me, you know that I try my best to infuse “teachable moments” anywhere I can. The children play with Play-Doh every morning by choice, so on this day, all I did was provide some cardboard letters (courtesy of @experiencecurriculum, although if you’re handy with a blade and cardboard boxes, it would probably be easy to make your own) and invited them to use them in…
Give a child a brown paper bag, some markers, and a small paper bear 🐻 to decorate, and watch the dramatic play begin. Want to spruce it up? Add some sticks and leaves 🍃 collected from the outdoors. And of you want things committed to memory and concepts more fully understood (such as hibernation), pair these activities with a story, like Bear Has a Story to Tell by Phillip C. Stead (pictured…
On this day, we rolled out of bed a little reluctant to start the day, and B requested dot markers. The beauty of exposure is that she now has a pretty good idea of what she has available to her. I outlined a Christmas tree 🎄 and she decorated it with dot “balls.” After that, it was mostly independent play with her requesting help from me to cover every square inch…