Remember that your preschoolers need to practice moving and coordinating their small hands – their fine motor skills. You can engage them in fun, playful practice and they won’t even know they’re learning! Here are 8 engaging activities for your tots.
Don’t these look fun! Give them a try and let us know what you think!
It’s back to school time. It’s also time to get kids back into math play and learning! There are many great math games for kids that are so fun kids won’t notice how much they’re learning. Here are our favorites.
The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game
Pink Telly the Teaching Time Clock
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As soon as your child can hold a crayon, he or she becomes an artist, drawing pictures that look like scribbles or raindrops or galloping herds of horses.
Help young children learn to draw.
Developmentally, kids progress from scribbles to representing forms to detailed realism. See the chart of developmental stages of art.
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I’m a big believer in modeling, in other words, doing what you want your child to do to show him. So, sit down and start drawing. Then, invite your child to draw next to you suggesting that he picks something else to draw than you.
Keep art supplies handy and accessible so you can find your artist moments throughout the day!
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What are your favorite art supplies? What does your child love to draw?
Want to keep your kids over five years moving? Then you need a balance board and this cool Electro Balance Board is the wooden Simon Says of Balance Boards. Kids follow along to the increasingly hard directions and will improve memory, speed, and agility. 
Can’t be too bad for those core muscles either!
Oh, and did I mention it’s tons of fun?
(I bet you’ll want to try it, too.)
It’s won the Oppenheim Best Toy and the Better Homes and Gardens Best Toy!
Are you as excited about the Olympics as we are? I can’t wait to see the opening ceremony, gymnastics, and swimming. How about you?
Engage your kids in the Olympics with these activities and crafts from the best kid-friendly bloggers.
Olympic Games Scavenger Hunt from Kid World Citizen
Kid Bloggers Go Olympics Blog Hop – lots of ideas!
Teachable Moments in the Olympics from Cheerios and Lattes
Games, crafts, and generally awesome Olympic printables from Tinyme
GO USA!!!
Get your kids digging in the dirt, planting seeds and plants, and observing plant growth.
Kids can plant small plants.
They might want their own tools.
Kids can help water the plants. That helps them observe daily growth.
What else can you do with plants and gardening? Take leaves and petals and make stained glass art. Or you can make perfume or press flowers.
Consider keeping a gardening notebook to track growth and observations. Here’s a printable gardening notebook.
NurtureStore, an amazing blog for parents and kids, just published a most fantastic eBook called The Garden Classroom: 52 kids gardening activities. I’ve read it and LOVE it! I think you will, too. Go check it out.
Have you gardened with your kids before?
Cooking with kids teaches important skills — plus it’s fun and yummy!
Let your kids see the recipe and gather the ingredients. This helps them know what combines to make something new.
Then, show them how to measure which is great fraction practice. Even harder, see if they can double the recipe amounts.
Mixing helps motor skills and strength.
Set the timer and bake. It’s a great way to figure out elapsed time — and practice patience.
At Imagine Toys, we have an easy Ice-Cream Maker that would be a great choice for cooking with your kids.
I keep several Curious Chef Kits stocked up for birthday gifts. (My girls just informed me that they want one, too!)
What will you cook today?
Snack Attack, a ThinkFun matching game, helps kids play while practicing visual discrimination.
Crank the spinner and watch the circular snack items plop onto the platter. Match your own plate’s tokens with the ones on the big platter. Whoever collects the most tokens wins!
It’s fun, fast, learning!
When’s the last time you made homemade play dough? There are lots of ways to play and learn with play dough including creativity, fine motor skills, imagination, and counting.
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbspn oil
t Tbsp cream of tarter
coloring
Mix and stir over medium heat.
. . .
Gather a box of play dough supplies like cookie cutters and other things to poke, smooth, and texture!
* Make the alphabet with cookie cutters or by rolling the play dough into lines.
* Pretend play bakery.
* Practice fine motor skills like cutting.
* Pretend play birthday.
* Have different plastic animals make tracks across the playdough.
* Make snowmen.
By: Maureen Denard
Almost every parent has bought their toddler a new toy expecting him to completely love it, only to find out that he seems to enjoy the box that it came in more than the toy itself. While there is no way to really avoid this, it is important to evaluate the toys you’re considering purchasing for your toddler before handing over the money for them. When shopping for toddler toys, consider the following things before you buy:
While giving your toddler new toys can be fun, think through your purchases before you buy. When you do, you give yourself the opportunity to consider if the toy is really worth buying, or if it’s a toy that won’t be missed if you don’t purchase it.
Maureen Denard the author for Find a Nanny - She loves to write article and ideas that parents and nannies would be interested in hearing. She helps society on giving information about nannies through Find a Nanny. Have more questions or need tips? Check out the Find a Nanny blog here: http://www.findananny.net/
