Thursday, December 8, 2016

Elephant and Piggie Christmas Ornaments

Elephant and Piggie Celebrate Christmas

We made Christmas ornaments inspired by our very favorite Elephant and Piggie books. These fun characters are a pleasure to have for some quality dramatic play for this kid! The most special ornaments on our Christmas tree make us smile - I suspect they might be treasured by this little reader later on.

Christmas ornaments inspired by children's books: links to more ideas and inspiration from this season's project "10 Days of a Kid-Made Christmas" can be found at the end of this article.


- We are going to have Christmas!
- Yes, Santa will come!
- He is so BIGGY- BIG- BIG-
- I CANNOT WAIT!
- Piggie!
- Yes, Gerald?

- I am SO HAPPY to go to the Christmas party WITH YOU!

Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems

These books did wonders for this little reader: the love for reading and confidence, fluency and expression, comprehension and creativity. We have read the books in different settings: adult reading, child reading, adult and child, two children. Each book becomes even more fun every time they reread it.

It is hard to choose a favorite from this series. It could be "We Are in a Book!" as the reader becomes part of the story. It makes it engaging for kids. Amazon affiliate link: We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)

As we are into dancing here, we found this book very funny: Elephants Cannot Dance! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)



Elephant and Piggie Christmas Ornaments

I love how our elephant and piggy are ornaments and dramatic play props for this Christmas season. They just can't stop talking and creating new stories: so fun!

For this ornaments we used:
  • clear plastic ornaments,
  • pink and blue construction paper,
  • ribbons, bows, tinsel to fill the ornaments,
  • a black Sharpie, tape, scissors.

We drew ears, a trunk, and a snout free hand and cut them out. We decided to use tape to attach the parts to the ornaments. Elephant's glasses: two white circles with the eyes drawn on them are placed on a piece of tape; the frames a drawn on tape with a Sharpie. Piggie's eyes and a mouth are drawn on the ornament.


Christmas Ornaments Inspired by Children's Books

Here are today's precious ornaments and favorite books:

Dinosaur Fossil and Dinosaur Ornament from Planet Smarty Pants. "The Dinosaurs' Night before Christmas" by Anne Muecke.

Rustic Wreath Christmas Tree Ornament from The Eyes of a Boy. "The Dream Snow" by Eric Carle.

Christmas Candy Cane Ice Skating Ornament from The Soccer Mom Blog. "Katie The Candy Cane Fairy" by Thomas Nelson.

Felt Paw Print Ornament from Zing Zing Tree. "Merry Christmas, Splat! (Splat the Cat)" by Rob Scotton.

Find more ideas and inspiration from this season's project "10 Days of a Kid-Made Christmas" here: Christmas Ornaments Inspired by Children's Books from Mama Miss.





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Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Math Games We Love for Preschool to Second Grade

Fun with Math and playful explorations of the early Math concepts: our little ones are into Math recently. Math can be so much fun at this age! Some of our favorite games are here; as well as links to the gift guides for this holiday season from some of the best Kid Bloggers on the Web.



Balance Beans: Seesaw Logic Game. Kids can practice measuring weight and balancing the scale, logic skills and physics principles. There is a series of challenges with the answer keys going from easy to hard. Amazon affiliate link: Balance Beans Game

Money Bags: A Crazy Coin Counting Game. Kids collect and count money, exchange them in a bank, and more - the biggest money bag wins. Amazon affiliate link: Learning Resources - Money Bags Coin Value Game.

Geometric Shapes Puzzles: Super Mind. This is a series of 30 puzzle challenges going from easy to hard. I like how the difficulty level increases gently... until the child can concur a challenge that would take me time to solve. The Super Mind puzzles are created with the increased level of difficulty and a sequel to Mighty Mind. Amazon affiliate link: SuperMind



Geometric Solids: 14 Relational Shapes in Six Colors. They are great for "Roll or Stack?' game, can be filled in the sensory bins, are wonderful tools with magnetic sand. Amazon affiliate link: Learning Resources View-Thru Geometric Solids (14Colored)

Electronic Learning: Telly the Teaching Time Clock. Telly has a working digital clock and a night light. Analog clock offers two modes. A quiz mode is for setting time in five minute increments, or kids can ask Telly to tell the time. Telly comes in primary colors, or pink and purple. Amazon affiliate link: The Learning Journey Telly The Teaching Time Clock, Primary Colors

Sum Swamp: Addition and Subtraction Game. Swamp creatures race to the finish line. They will have to make up and solve some number sentences that (hopefully) will help them to go through the swamp fast. Each game doesn't last too long to keep little mathematicians excited in the swamp adventure. Amazon affiliate link: Learning Resources Sum Swamp Game.


Math in Art: Spirograph. Spirograph was developed by a mechanical engineer as a drafting tool and first introduced in 1965. This "the original Spirograph" set is a newer version of the old favorite. Kids might enjoy exploring Math and Art concepts through creative play. Amazon affiliate link: Spirograph Deluxe Design Set

Logic and High Tech Fun: Laser Maze Jr. Get the laser beam to the rockets so they can safely return to Earth. The series of challenges are offered with the increasing level of difficulty. Kids are to place mirrors on the grid to direct the laser beam. Amazon affiliate link: Laser Maze Junior Board Game

Practice Left and Right, and Counting: Turtle Flip. This is a simple "Hot Potato" game with the twist. Any fun opportunity to practice left and right, counting and comparing numbers, attention and memory is very welcome! Amazon affiliate link: Turtle Flip - Educational Family Game - Fun for Kids and Adults 6 Years and Up


For more great ideas for this holiday season from some of the best Kid Bloggers visit this page:



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Sunday, June 5, 2016

Tasty Volumes of Juice: Measure Liquids Math Activities for Kids.

ice Math: Volume, Taste, Color, and Mix

Our introduction to volume was refreshing and fun. We used our senses to explore juice drinks, measured them, and created our new favorite mixes.

STEM challenge: How the volume of juices effect the taste of the mixture?

For these activities we used our new favorite juice drinks: Santa Cruz Organic. They are lightly sweetened, refreshing, and made with organic fruit juices and natural flavors. I received this product for free from the sponsors of the Green Moms Meet program who received it directly from the manufacturer. All experiences and opinions are my own.


Juice Observations and Games: Notice Colors, Taste, Smell, Guess the Sugar Amount 

We tried to use all five senses to compare and contrast the juices:
  • Notice and describe the colors: light and dark yellow and red.
  • Discovering the fruits: observe the smell and taste, the ingredients the juice is made of.
  • Reading the label: a short environmental print practice (we found the pictures of fruits and read some words that caught the eye).
  • Guess the Taste game: one player closes eyes and takes a sip; then tries to guess the juice.
  • Guess the Sugar game. We were able to find out that lemonade has more sugar than other juices; discussed how too much sugar is not healthy and brought a container of drinking water to the table.
  • Introduction to volume and juice transfer activity.
  • A new discovery: Juice (as any liquid) takes the shape of its container!
For these activities we used:
  • A tray to collect spills, containers of different shapes and capacity, syringes and pipettes.
  • Santa Cruz Organic Pomegranate Agua Fresca juice drink. It is red in color, contains organic pomegranate and lemon juice, 14g of organic sugar.
  • Santa Cruz Organic Lemonade. It is light yellow in color, contains organic lemon juice and juice concentrate, organic natural lemon flavor, 22g of sugar. 
  • Santa Cruz Organic Mango Passion Fruit Agua Fresca juice drink. It is bright yellow in color, has a pleasant smell, contains organic mango puree, organic passion fruit concentrate, organic lemon juice and natural flavors, 14g of sugar.
  • For more information about Santa Cruz organic juice drinks, visit http://www.santacruzorganic.com/. Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/santacruzorganic

Juice Math: Liquids and Measurements

We found numbers 1 to 3 and letters "ml" on the syringe. Then we used syringes to measure the volume.

Pictured below, since the cups are the same shape and size, and liquid takes the shape of its container, we can compare the volume and fill the cups to about the same volume in the cups.

The art of juice drinks: how to make a perfect mix? How the volume of juices effect the taste of the mixture?


The two questions above turned out to be inspiring! Now we pay more attention to the choice of fruits, and what we drink, and the healthy choices we can make...

And we are getting more creative with the flavors of drinks, mixtures, and popsicles - that is a fun (and hopefully ongoing) process for this summer!



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Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Smart Beavers Water Play and Engineering for Preschoolers

Build a Dam Like a Beaver

We recycled a plastic table cloth to build a river in the yard. It turned out to be a fun engineering activity, river exploration, and a water play. We were able to explored the water flow hands-on: kids adjusted the "river" easily for different outcomes with this quick set up. They attempted to engineer a simple dam with supplies at hand - a great problem solving activity since the effectiveness of their structures was easy to see.



Our beaver craft can be found here: Happy Beaver Earth Day Craft for Kids from My Bright Firefly.

Beaver books we loved (Amazon affiliate links):
Little Beaver and the Echo
Turtle's Race with Beaver
Beaver Is Lost

Beavers Water Play

To create a river, we rolled four pool noodles in a table cloth and secured with tape.

A small choice of toys and supplies was offered for explorations and building: plastic fish and ducks, rocks, sticks, soil with clay, three buckets of different sizes, two watering cans of different sizes and shapes, a gardening hose, portable toy water wheels.

Water wheels are optional for these activities. Amazon affiliate links:
Small World Toys Sand & Water - Water Wheel
American Plastic Toy Sand and Water Wheel

Engineering challenge: How to position the pool noodles to keep the water inside?

Engineering challenge: How to position the river for the fastest flow of water? For the slowest flow? For creating a lake with the water flow underground? (We tried different angles of river on the grassy slope.)


Beavers' activities change the water habitat. Kids played with plastic fish and ducks helping them down the stream.

Engineering challenge: create a water flow for the ducks to go down the stream.

Engineering challenge: create a dam that can stop the flow of water and form a small "pond" for beavers.

It was an interesting process of attempting to stop the flow of water using rocks, sticks, leaves, and soil with clay. It is a process since building the dam is not an easy task. Two of the best solutions for the day were found:

  1. Position the river in a V shape to collect the water at the bottom of the "V".
  2. Place a bucket inside the river, place the ducks inside, and start filling the bucket with water until the overflow will send ducks down the river (or just dump the bucket: whichever comes first).
I call it a success for the day!


A to Z Animal Series

For the month of June, kid bloggers are working together to bring you A to Z Animal series. Some fun ideas for kids activities and crafts are coming!

Albatross, Beaver, Crab, Duck, Elephant, and so on. You can find all the links here: A to Z Animal Series from Teach Me Mommy.


The first article in the Animal series is The Bird with the Biggest Wingspan: Albatross Craft from Preschool Powol Packets.


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Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Fun Introduction to Sentence. Summer Learning Games for Kids.

Soup Can Word Towers on Sentence Street

Introduction to finger spaces between the words, capital letters at the beginning of the sentences, and punctuation at the end sounds boring and complicated for little ones.

We needed a great visual for playing with the sentence in a fun way. Of course, cut and paste words to build a sentence is a great practice. But our awesome soup can towers served us well:
  1. Vegetable and soup cans are so fun to build with!
  2. We were able to observe and create words that are big and small, short and tall. Spacing the words using a finger was our new "magic trick".
  3. The first and last cans on our Sentence Street were "special" color coded cans. They got to be great manipulatives for playing with the new concepts. You can also find our pretend play set up for a period and a question mark here: Zookeeper Dramatic Play: Introducing a Question and a Question Mark.


The idea for these activities came from a wonderful new book that was released yesterday!

"100 Fun and Easy Learning Games for Kids" by Amanda Boyarshinov and Kim Vij is a great resource for preschool and kindergarten this summer. The book was sent to us for a review free of charge. All opinions in this post are my own. This article is not sponsored in any other way.

100 Fun and Easy Learning Games for Kids from The Educator's Spin on It.

Stack a Word

This activity has been reprinted with the permission from the publisher from book "100 Fun & Easy Learning Games for Kids".

Materials: construction paper, scissors, 10 cans of similar size, black marker, tape.
Directions to make:
  1. Cut 10 papers to wrap around the cans.
  2. Write two vowels and two consonants on each paper. Vary letter combinations to include all letters.
  3. Attach a letter paper to each can with tape.
  4. Write down on a separate paper select consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words in focused word family.


Introduction to a Sentence Dramatic Play

For these activities we used:


We built the towers, noticed their sizes, spaced them out using a finger.

Finally, Captain Mac was able to drive a car down the street to check for the first and last cans on the street.

The cans are also color  coded for the type of vegetables inside. So that if I need to use one, I'll know to open consonants or vowels. Yes, we store our new game supplies in the pantry - fun!

We missed a word! (Pictured below.) Will Captain Mac be able to find a missing tower?


100 Fun and Easy Learning Games for Kids

"100 Fun and Easy Learning Games for Kids" by Amanda Boyarshinov and Kim Vij was our go-to resource for these activities. I love all the game ideas! They are fun, easy to set up, and just in time for the busy summer. 




My Firefly loved this book as much as I did. She paged through admiring the illustrations and exclaiming "I want to play this!" for each. I guess, we will be using this book A LOT during this summer. All the games are very easy to set up with the supplies that are readily available.

All the games are divided into six chapters: fantastic reading, amazing writing adventures, really cool math, super science, magical music and art, and going global.

"As the parents of children ages 2, 4, 5, and 8, we wanted to make sure that the skills our children worked so hard to learn would be remembered. We also wanted to extend our children's learning and challenge their thinking in fun ways." (From the authors of the book, p. 6)

Yes, we were able to enjoy the challenge in fun ways with their first game, and are looking forward to so much more!


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Friday, May 20, 2016

Fun STEM Challenges in the Block Center for Preschool and Kindergarten

Easy Engineering and Math Challenges for Preschoolers

Preschool engineering, math and art are at play here for some awesome STEM challenges and kids' creative solutions. The variety of materials to explore, including some environmental print, pretend play ideas, or a giant small world - these STEM challenges are fun for kids.


Creative Block Center

Pictured above:

Add Wooden Clothespins and Craft Sticks to the Block Center from Frugal Fun for Boys. I love the engineering challenges and fine motor aspects of these activities.

Cubes and Craft Sticks Engineering from My Bright Firefly. The challenges progress from the easiest with 3 cubes to the little more complex. Some free play at the end was very inspired and creative!

Mail Delivery Pretend Play Quick Set Up from My Bright Firefly. Craft sticks, triangles, and numbers helped us with our mail delivering services.

Add Traffic Signs for a Print Rich Environment from Pre-K Pages. A free printable set, craft sticks, and a pool noodle - kids will love having traffic signs at the block center.

Free Magnetic Tile Printables from Totschooling.


Pictured above:

The Power of Magnets in the Block Center from The Science Kiddo. Make a magnet powered card and explore the properties of magnets hands-on.

Dinosaurs, Rocks, and Numbers on the Mirror from My Bright Firefly. The mirror reflections of the objects and light enhances child's play and motivates to go through some fun engineering and math challenges.

Reggio Inspired: A Pet Store Dramatic Play Easy Set up from Twodaloo. A variety of materials at hand enhances experimenting and creativity.

Add a Structures Book to the Block Center from Fun-a-Day. This Book of Famous Structures is a wonderful idea for the block center!

An Oversized Cardboard Box for the Small World Set up from The Imagination Tree. Kids will love playing and improving their giant small world play scene!

Train Station Dramatic Play: Lego Duplo Counting Games from Inspiration Laboratories. Help kids with the planning stages - they will love creating this fun Train Station Dramatic Play Simple Set up.


Preschool Engineering

Pictured above:

Race down the Ramp Filled with Labyrinths and Tunnels from What Do We Do All Day. Kids will love setting up obstacle courses for their race cars (and exploring some physics hands-on).

Engineering a Colorful Creepy Castle Using Foam Blocks from My Bright Firefly. Engineering and Art come together for some fun castle play.

Construction Playing with Play Dough and Blocks from Learn with Play at Home. Play concrete (play dough colored grey) was used for some creative engineering and building.

Geometric Solids: Engineering in Action from My Bright Firefly. Explore the properties of geometric solids through several fun challenges.

Shapes and Bridges with Mini Cups and Craft Sticks from Handmade Kids Art. How high can you build your structure?... and other fun engineering challenges.

Ball and Magna Tiles Challenges: the Relative Position from Growing Book by Book. Describe and problem solve while learning prepositions.

Engineering and Math Games and Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten: Fun STEM challenges in the creative block center are beneficial to the little ones on so many levels. We are always on a hunt for some awesome play ideas!


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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Sense of Time, Observation Skills, and Math with Cats Preschool Activities

Waiting Games and Cat's Lunch Dramatic Play

Waiting is not an easy task for preschoolers. How long can I wait if one minute feels forever? "Waiting" is a wonderful book that inspired us to compare and contrast the cats, review greater - lesser number while feeding the cats, review the seasons... or just patiently look through the window.

Mindfulness, patience, and a sense of time are all great players in the game of waiting!


Waiting: Observation Skills, Time, and Patience

"Waiting" by Kevin Henkes received Caldecott award for many good reasons. Five toy friends on the window sill are waiting for their happy moments. How long should they wait? After all, friends are there to go through the happy and sad times together. So they do. They experience a rainbow and a thunderstorm, a loss of a friend and a picnic together.

Will patience win at the end? There are no answers provided, only the invitations to observe, think, and be mindful. The illustrations feel subtle and poetic with the soft pastels, my favorite combination of chocolate and blue on a creamy background.

Amazon affiliate link: Waiting: Caldecott Honor and Geisel Honor Book.


Math with Cats Preschool Activities

It happened that a cat visited five friends. She was happy... and she waited. What she was waiting for?

The answer was unexpectedly sweet: she was waiting for her kittens to arrive soon! For these activities we used stackable matryoshka cats. They are origami cats and very easy to make. The tutorial is found here: Matryoshka Cats from Krokotak.


We enjoyed reading this short story many times. Each time the new discoveries were made and new things and feelings discussed.

Our new stackable cats remain favorites for several days now. I made them and drew their facial features using a crayon first.

We compared and contrasted the colors of the cats in the book. Do they make a patterns if set up side by side? What are similar? (Pink noses and ears, they all have patches, only one cat has stripes too.)

We looked at the number, color, and size of the patches on each cat. Then used watercolors and Q-tips to make our cats different.


An Invitation to Feed the Cats

For this activity we used:
  • 5 cats,
  • 7 plates,
  • many gold fish crackers in a bowl.
Are the numbers of cats and plates same? Greater and lesser numbers reviewed here. What can we do to set up the table properly? Possible answers: remove 2 plates, bring more cats, set additional plates for us so that everybody has a plate. Than our cats made an order of fish. Fish was counted and served - the cats were grateful.

Such a lovely book, lovely cats: we enjoyed these simple activities!


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