Board Books - not just for babies

 Board books are works of art in the hands of children.  Usually colorful illustrations accompany simple text.  This is what makes them perfect for early readers.

 Want to encourage a toddler or preschooler to get a bath? Read a book like this where different animals get different kinds of baths and pair with an animals.  Let them take the animals into the bath with them.  Clean the animals. Clean yourself.  It's a parent win!

 Board books are great for teaching early concepts like counting and letter sounds.  One Tiger is thee perfect counting book!

 Add animals to any book for kiddos to get excited about storytime and reading.  Someday, when I decide to go get a PhD, I am going to write about how making characters from a book tangible to children helps them to comprehend and retain the book more completely.  And, hey, how cute is this Schleich Bear?  When children have props, they can later act out or retell the story.

Make the story come alive.  Preschoolers love the book Dinosaur Roar!  let them retell it with their favorite dinosaurs.

Reggio to Rainbow

I have always loved the Reggio approach to education.  I incorporated a lot of its aspects into my classroom once upon a time.  The above photo was on Pinterest and comes from atelierpourenfants.blogspot.fr  I was so inspired by it.

I went in search of clay and decided to go to my local dollar store, because it's inexpensive and didn't know how well the project would go over. They only had rainbow clay and that's okay. 1) G loves rainbows and 2) it was cheap. I didn't want to invest a lot of money in clay if G was interested.

But G WAS interested - intrigued even.  She loved molding the clay aka tree bases and adding different twigs to make the trees - big and small, straight up or "very branchy".

Roo, who is 20 months, also LOVED making the trees.  She spent about 30 minutes making her trees.  She likes to do everything that big sister does, but also this is her kind of project.  She likes to figure things out.

The above was my Rainbow Forest.

This above photo is G and Roo's Rainbow Forest.  G has plays to expand her Rainbow Forest.  "We need to make it big enough for all the animals of the world." She said.  I had to go pick up 4 more packs of Rainbow clay.  In between breakfast and preschool this morning, we were making more trees for the Rainbow Forest.  I smile, because I think in true Reggio fashion, we have a project lead by the child's interest and it is a project that it being added to and growing with the child's thoughts and imagination.

Have a fun and playful day
Mel

Cold Enough For Penguins & Polar Bears

We may not have gotten as much snow as out east, but it sure is cold here. Cold enough for penguins and polar bears. So I gave in and thought, "why not celebrate the cd?" I gathered all the polar animals ~ penguins, polar bears, moose, snowy owls (even a couple cats were brought to the mix!😀) toys that l could find and then found all the cold weather themed books. It's been a fun inside cozy kind of morning. (Mentally, I am still wishing for June-like weather.)

Have a playful day & stay warm!

What we are playing with today...

 PBS's Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (based on Mister Rogers Neighbood Land of Make Believe ) is a HUGE hit with us. These adorable toys came in a set of 5 for $9.99 at Toys are us. There not no small parts, so little sister plays with them, too.

 Nickjr brought Peter Rabbit to a new generation. The computer animated series is sooo cute and has a good lesson in it.

What can l say? I live Schleich horses as much as the girls. They are all hand painted and have incredible detail. Now add the 3 sets together and oh, the stories l have heard today!

Have a fun and playful weekend.

Mel🐸