I first learned about #magicnoodles in my 20s while teaching preschool, thanks to one of my favorite teacher friends, Cheryl Pinckney. Until just recently, I had forgotten about them but wow 😮 have I been missing out. What’s so special about them? You dab them with a damp cloth and they stick together, like magic, making any structure possible. In this case, we used the noodles to represent the brain…
Young children (and sometimes their parents 🙋🏻♀️) are fascinated by the simplest things. So while asking them to use a white crayon to draw on white paper didn’t seem all to exciting, using watercolors to reveal the magic beneath was. We wrote their names, drew ghosts, pumpkins, hearts, suns, a dog, and pretty much anything their hearts desired. They couldn’t see any of it until they used the watercolors…
As a little girl growing up, Toys R Us was a magical land that could do no wrong, but as an adult I started to question everything. Ever notice how Toys R Us had sections whose colors were geared to the gender they were trying to appeal to? The Barbie section was one giant wall of pink, and you likely couldn’t have found a pink Tonka truck in the…
Puzzles aren’t just a ton of fun, they’re a great way for your child to develop fine motor and visual-spatial skills. But before you get all excited and run out to buy some, please stop to consider a few things: 1) What kind of puzzle is developmentally appropriate for my child? 2) How am I going to use this WITH my child? To simplify your life, I…
There is something to be said about learning to follow directions in order to duplicate a product, but it’s not the ONLY way. In fact, I’d much rather not show or tell a child what it’s supposed to look like at all, and have them create something original using the same materials every other person in the room was given. Sure, it might look like total poop…
I want to start off by saying that I make absolutely no money from the company whose curriculum I chose to use for my daughter. I looked into 10 different ones (and there are many more to choose from), and it’s the only one that really stood out. It’s research based, aligned to each state’s standards (for FL, it’s aligned to the old standards…