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Whole Child Development

Sticky Collage

by Filed Under: Create, Learning through Play and Experience Leave a Comment

I love doing collages with children!  They are always so excited to exercise their independence and decide just exactly what goes where.  It’s a great exercise in creativity and small motor skills.  I’m sure you all have your favorite ways to do collages.  Well, here’s another approach to those fantastic creations!

Often, I see young children piling objects onto their papers without applying glue.  They’re so involved in the sticking process, they forget the sticking agent!  It’s loads of fun until they pick up their papers and watch their work fall down to the art tray.  Well, one fun way to do collages, and to avoid the missing glue problem, is to use Contact Paper! [Read more…]

Playing in the Gutters

by Filed Under: Learning through Play and Experience, Music and Movement 22 Comments

 Anyone who knows me well, knows I am no stranger to Home Depot.  Having married a man with a penchant for home remodeling, I have learned to navigate the aisles well, in search of the right size of screws, the critically needed electrical wire, or the aesthetically pleasing cabinet pull.  Almost without fail, I see something at “the Depot” that appeals to the preschool teacher in me (or maybe it’s the preschooler in me). 

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A Giveaway – Because the Sun is Shining

by Filed Under: Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Click, Clack, Quackity-quack

It’s a gorgeous day today!  The sun is shining, the sky is clear, and the air could almost be called warm.  A beautiful day like today makes this weekend’s winter storm warning so hard to believe.  But living in the present, today gives me hope that spring is on its way!  So in honor of a sunny day, and because I’m high on the sunshine-induced endorphins, I’m giving away two of these sunny yellow books!  Doreen Cronin’s Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack is a cleverly alliterated barnyard alphabet book.   I have two paperback copies I want to share with you!  Just comment here and let me know about your favorite things to do with children in the spring.  Two winners will be chosen at random on Monday morning.  Maybe reading your ideas will keep me warm when I’m back in the snow this weekend!

Bev Bos’ Secret to Successful Shaving Cream Art

by Filed Under: Create, Learning through Play and Experience Leave a Comment

I do enjoy Bev Bos!  That woman is in a league of her own!  Well, it’s thanks to Bev that I’ve learned the secret to great shaving cream painting!  In the past, I’ve had children paint with colored shaving cream, and they’ve had a great experience, but unless they spread the foam out, once that foam’s dry, it all seems to fall apart.  Enter Bev.  Her big secret is to add equal parts Elmer’s glue and shaving cream and whip them together.  Then add your color and you’re good to go! [Read more…]

Bev Bos' Secret to Successful Shaving Cream Art

by Filed Under: Create, Learning through Play and Experience 8 Comments

I do enjoy Bev Bos!  That woman is in a league of her own!  Well, it’s thanks to Bev that I’ve learned the secret to great shaving cream painting!  In the past, I’ve had children paint with colored shaving cream, and they’ve had a great experience, but unless they spread the foam out, once that foam’s dry, it all seems to fall apart.  Enter Bev.  Her big secret is to add equal parts Elmer’s glue and shaving cream and whip them together.  Then add your color and you’re good to go! [Read more…]

Exploring Magnets

by Filed Under: Learning through Play and Experience 3 Comments

I apologize for disappearing for a bit.  I was being held hostage by a computer virus and spent the better part of the last couple of days trying to put down its hostile take-over.  For the life of me, I can’t figure out why people make a hobby out of creating something to waste other people’s time.  If you want to waste your own time, by all means go for it, but why waste some stranger’s?  Is that entertaining to some people?  Though I have to confess, if, in the midst of my virus-inflicted frustration, I had actually followed through with my fantasy of throwing my computer through the window, someone might have found that entertaining.  But alas, the computer is still here on my desk, and the mutiny has been laid to rest.  So, on to the better things in life…..like magnets!

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Positive Guidance Tools of the Trade: Alternatives to the Traditional Time-Out

by Filed Under: Child Development & DAP, Positive Guidance and Social Skills Leave a Comment

When the practice of time-out first made its appearance on the child guidance stage, it was introduced as an alternative to corporeal punishment, the preferred method of the day for helping children see the error of their ways.  In this context, the nuance was a huge step forward.  Unfortunately, many, parents and teachers alike, have fixated on time-out and the result is a method run amok.

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