Books provide an early opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and concepts to young children. Newborns won’t show much interest in books but will be happy to listen to the tone and intonations of your voice as you read aloud to them. During this early period, I would suggest reading what makes you happy. This may…
Whether due to weather, limited outdoor space, or indoor obligations, it is often necessary for children to have some of their movement time inside rather than outside. For preschoolers, moving their bodies is not just about getting their wiggles out, it is also about the development of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, spatial awareness,…
Wondering what you should do with your backyard, porch, or balcony so your young child can play outside and be engaged in their play? Here are some suggestions to make small or large spaces enticing for your child. Whether you have a standard backyard, 40 acres, a patio, a balcony, a front yard, a side…
Join us for a 6 week summer preschool program to engage little minds and inspire the imagination with weekly circle times, arts and crafts, nature crafts and games.
Development doesn’t stop with summer and doesn’t have to be boring. Summer is a great time for learning, both indoors and outdoors. Using stories, songs, rhymes, verses, movement, art and games, children can have a beautiful summer of fun and learning. I will post engaging activities, and it will allow families to have fun together. Weekly blog posts will be posted every weekend starting July 4th weekend, so that you can follow along with us. Everything will be all planned out with minimal prep time. This preschool session is ideal for ages three to younger fours, but can be adapted for other children or siblings to join in.
As part of this summer preschool program, we will be using a curriculum from Oak Meadow called Preschool Play: Seasons of Wonder Coursebook. This curriculum is available at: Preschool Play: Seasons of Wonder Coursebook | Oak Meadow. We will be using this curriculum throughout preschool, prekindergarten, kindergarten and the first third of first grade. It is a flexible curriculum packed with seasonal verses, rhymes, songs and activities. The activities range from art projects to nature crafts, from games to play to recipes to cook. It is developmentally appropriate and provides examples of how to adapt it for different ages. It is organized seasonally and we will be using the summer section. Although there are supplemental materials that go along with this coursebook, I do not suggest buying them. This curriculum is Waldorf inspired and will be necessary to follow along with our summer preschool program.
From an academic standpoint, we will be working on memory, pre-reading, fine motor, nature science, vocabulary, early math and gross motor skills. Most three-year-olds are not ready to start learning all of their letters because they are still learning how to visually categorize their world and how to connect a sound to a visual cue. Letters are a very abstract concept where this wiggly shape on a page, different from this other wiggly shape, represents a name and a variety of disconnected sounds. A child then needs to remember the exact shape, the name and the sound that goes with 26 unique letters.
Although 2- & 3-year-olds may learn a few letters, usually the first letter of their name, their ability to remember more is usually limited and sporadic. To avoid frustration for learners and parents, I suggest exposing three-year-olds to letters but holding off on trying to actively teach them until their Prekindergarten year. There are many other pre-reading skills that can be learned in preschool. This summer we will be working on memory skills, as well as reading comprehension.
The preschool year is a wonderful year for learning math orally and through manipulatives. Numbers are wonderful for three-year-olds to learn because they can touch and count things with numbers. You can request three baby carrots or hold four rocks. We will be undertaking a full math curriculum this upcoming preschool year and will touch on a few early math concepts over the summer.
Most children are ready to learn handwriting around four years of age and, to facilitate this, we will be using art and song motions to increase fine motor skills. Learning the motions for verses, rhymes and songs is a wonderful way to increase memory skills, practice following multi-step directions and work on fine motor skills. Singing songs together also develops memory skills as well as familiarizing children with rhyming. My planned curriculums will include songs and music into 3rd grade with circle times into 1st grade.
My summer preschool program will be focusing on learning about seasons, animals and plants. Children will be encouraged to act out stories through play about a variety of animals. These early lessons in science are the building blocks for life sciences later on in school. Art projects will be looking at colors and seeing what colors make new colors, as well as engaging the child in sensory and fine motor development.
A comprehensive plan for the week will be posted every weekend for the following week starting July 4th weekend. There will be two circle times, a game day and multiple activity suggestions for each week. Each circle time is designed to last about 30 minutes, as is the game day. Each of the activities with set up and clean up time, should take 45-60 minutes depending on your child’s engagement. If you don’t choose to purchase the Oak Meadow coursebook, you will still be able to follow along with roughly half of the curriculum, which I invite you to do.
Please join us!
Books provide an early opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and concepts to young children. Newborns won’t show much interest in books but will be happy to listen to the tone and intonations of your voice as you read aloud to them. During this early period, I would suggest reading what makes you happy. This may be romance novels or parenting books, and in fact this is a great time to read some wonderful parenting books. Infants up to about 4 months of age may also enjoy staring at black and white books or pictures as their eyesight develops, but after these early months most babies are attracted to bright primary colors. So if you wish to buy black and white baby books, just know that your baby will most likely outgrow them rapidly.
Once your infant is about 4 to 6 months of age, they are going to start showing interest in books. They will try to grab them and put them in their mouths. This is a great time to get them a set of baby safe books. I suggest only a few because they will mostly enjoy mouthing or shaking the books. They won’t be interested in the pictures or words right away, just the textures, sounds and feel of the books. You can try reading the books to them, but be prepared for them to grab the book and try to stuff it in their mouth. These are the books I would recommend for infants to play with from about 4 months up to about 18 months of age:
The next set of books are for babies that are 8 to 18 months old. This is when littles become mobile and start exploring. They will still be putting everything in their mouth, but now they will enjoy banging things on the floor, spilling toys all over the floor, pushing toys across the floor and tearing things apart. They will start showing interest in books’ pictures and words, but usually only for one to two pages at a time. You might find yourself reading the same two pages a dozen times in a day. I suggest books from the brand The Original Indestructibles. They are truly indestructible and nontoxic. I would recommend several of these books for your baby to explore and try to destroy, though you may pick other books from this brand based on personal preference, these are the ones I recommend:
Along with these books in the baby’s play area, I recommend for parents to have a collection of books to read to their baby that the baby does not have access to. This is a good way to teach early boundaries with some books being for baby and other books being just for parents. Pick one time during the day when your baby is relatively calm to read two books to them. This could be before their bath as part of their bedtime routine or first thing in the morning. Having this be part of the daily routine at an early age teaches the importance of books. If you want a child who loves reading and books, having books be a part of their daily life from a young age will help establish this love. Here are books to read to your 6 to18 month old baby. Young children love routine and repetition, so rereading the same books over and over is good for them.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
Reading books to your baby will help them develop a love for books and reading. It will teach them new vocabulary words and help them develop an understanding of how books work. Books can teach babies gently through repetition animal sounds, colors and other concepts in an age-appropriate manner that also encourages bonding between caregiver and child. Early exposure to books helps children develop language skills, pre-reading skills, vocabulary, fine motor skills and a desire to learn how to read. Once they are about 15 months or so, they will delight in turning the flaps inside some of these books. The simple language, primary colors and beautiful artwork will appeal to young children and be some of their favorite books. Reading to your baby, toddler, and child will be a favorite time for everyone.
Happy Reading!
Whether due to weather, limited outdoor space, or indoor obligations, it is often necessary for children to have some of their movement time inside rather than outside. For preschoolers, moving their bodies is not just about getting their wiggles out, it is also about the development of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, spatial awareness, and proprioceptive development. Planning and facilitating movement time inside the home allows parents to control what it looks like and when it happens. Movement time is a time for your child to have fun moving their body through dance, games, active play or active toys. This is a great time to connect with your child and have fun with them by joining in with dancing or games. Setting up active play or utilizing active toys can also be a great time for getting other things done while your child is engaged and moving. Here are some ways to do that.
The first way to promote movement is through dancing. Turn on some music and have a dance party. There is no special equipment needed, just a phone or radio. You can even make your own music. Your child can make music and dance at the same time if holding shaky eggs or a tambourine. Dance moves the whole body, is great for getting your heart rate up, and is easy to get started. Holding a dance party for the whole family is a fun way to get your young child’s wiggles out while learning about music, rhythm and keeping a beat. Dance and music are irreversibly linked and can be used together to develop a child’s love and enjoyment of both. Set a timer for 15 to 20 minutes and have some fun together.
The second way to get your child moving is through movement games like tag, London Bridges, Drive the Firetruck, or any active indoor game. Movement games can come from a book, or your imagination. They can look different for every family. There is no one right way as long as everyone is moving their bodies. For each game, set a timer for how long you want to play. The timing of the game should be set beforehand to set up expectations and emotions for transitions. These games can be lots of fun and children may struggle transitioning away from them. Setting up expectations beforehand can help avoid this. Using a visual timer can be helpful for those children that need something more concrete. Let’s look at London Bridges. You are singing a song, going round and round under the bridge until the bridge catches you. If playing it with one adult and one child, you can use a broom handle or jump rope to create a bridge, or the adult can be the bridge, and the child goes round and round till they are “caught.” You can make this a running, walking, crawling or slithering game. There are many active fun games you can play with your child to get them moving and smiling indoors with very little money spent.
If you need inspiration, these are some fun books to help get your children moving. There are five different themes in this book set to pick from. Pick the one that will appeal to your individual child. They are great for ages 2-10. If you would like a book to assist you in figuring out more traditional movement games to play with your child, 101 Movement Games is a great, affordable book off Amazon for ideas. It will work for a larger age range for children from 2-12, possibly older.
The last way to get your child moving indoors is to set up some indoor play with active toys. This could be taking the cushions off the couch and jumping onto them or putting a mattress in the living room for jumping on or rolling on. This could be ride-on toys or tricycles, especially if you have an area of your house without carpet that is large enough to go round and round. You could even do roller skates around the kitchen island if your children are a bit older. This could be a Pikler Triangle, sit n’spin, or rocker board. You can set up an obstacle course with pillows to jump on across the floor and a play tunnel to go through. There are many ways to create an inviting space within your home to get your child moving their body. Although you can create active play with the materials in your home, like having a pillow fight or jumping on a bed, it can be helpful to buy toys that can facilitate active play inside. Here are some suggestions for toys to buy. This is not a full list, just some suggestions, depending on budget, to get you started. I will provide suggested ages for each, but please buy according to your individual child’s development.
Your child will enjoy all of these ways of moving their body inside and I would encourage using a variety of ways to facilitate movement play. Changing up the games and the active toys in your house can keep your children engaged longer and using different muscles. Having active play in your home is wonderful for tiring out children and helping them sleep better, but it is also for developing gross motor skills. A healthy well-developed body is not just good for health, but is also good for the brain. There is a natural progression in gross motor skills that need to happen and be completed before a child is ready for academics. Having the core strength to sit at a table or desk for a period of time is important if your child is going to go to school for kindergarten, but it is also important for daily life and health.
Wondering what you should do with your backyard, porch, or balcony so your young child can play outside and be engaged in their play? Here are some suggestions to make small or large spaces enticing for your child.
Whether you have a standard backyard, 40 acres, a patio, a balcony, a front yard, a side yard, or a rooftop terrace, if it is at least 4 by 6 feet, you can make an outdoor space for your child to play. Outdoor spaces for young children to play give them, and you, a break from being inside all day and is vital for health and development. In Scandinavian countries, it is typical for young children and infants to nap outside in strollers, even in very cold temperatures. It gives children a respite from the germs, air pollution, and noises of indoor life. Fresh air and sunshine are healthy for our bodies and important for our immune systems to function properly. Playing outside allows children time to decompress and move their bodies. The feel of wind and sunshine on their skin, the smell of grass and trees, and the sound of leaves and lawn mowers engage their senses. Children can explore their outdoor environment and develop their gross motor skills through climbing and running, their fine motor skills through playing with dirt and rocks, their hand-eye coordination by throwing a ball, and their proprioceptive skills through jumping and swinging. Let’s look at what elements to have in your outdoor space to entice your children to enjoy being outside and to stimulate their minds.
The first element to have is water. Water play outside, if it is at least 60°F, provides a lovely sensory experience for young children. Whether this is a large bowl, basin, water table, kiddy pool, a horse trough, natural pond or large pool, young children love to play with water. They love to splash in it, pour water into and out of different containers, wiggle their toes in it, create bubbles and explore the feel of water on their skin. Water is a sensory experience and is great for outdoor play. Children should have funnels, cups and sponges to use in the water to experience all of its diverse qualities. Water play teaches cause and effect, fine motor skills, and hand-eye coordination.
The second element is living plants. These can be two pots with plants growing in them. This could also be a full garden, a forest behind your house, succulents if you live in the desert, or a backyard with grass. There should be dirt, rocks, leaves, something to smell, and something to touch with gentle hands. This is about creating a space to activate your child’s senses through visual green growing plants and their smells, sounds, feels and, possibly, tastes. If you do have a standard yard with grass, see if you can also have trees, bushes, or other plants growing. If you have pots, see about growing herbs that children can smell, or taste, like sage or mint. Green growing things invite young children outside and stimulate their senses in a way that concrete and rocks cannot.
The third element to have is sand, dirt, and/or pebbles that your child can scoop, pour, build with, get dirty with and manipulate with their hands. They should be able to mix this element with their water to create new sensations and learn about mud, wet sand, or how water flows over rocks. You can use anything from a plastic bin to a huge sand box, or maybe your backyard is the beach. Children should be encouraged and allowed to make mud pies and castles. They should have shovels, buckets and molds for filling and creating. This teaches them cause and effect, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, visual-spatial skills and even emotional skills as they navigate their creations falling down or not turning out how they had planned.
If you have a very small outdoor space, this is all you need for your child. Maybe add a small chair and table for you to complete the space. Your child can still spend 45-60 minutes outside every day in this space. They can help you water the plants, you can eat snack outside, and they can play. You can find parks near you, or other outdoor spaces, to develop gross motor skills because here is where I move into discussing outdoor play equipment for bigger outdoor spaces.
The first gross motor tool for your outdoor space would be a swing. This can be a single swing, or a full swing set. Hammocks, infant swings, or regular swings all work. Swings develop children’s proprioceptive perception through the wind against their bodies and the sensation of repetitively going back and forth. As children grow, you can change out an infant swing for a more traditional swing and your child can learn to propel themselves on their stomachs on the swing, or sit sideways and pretend they are on a horse until they are ready to learn how to pump their legs. Children can climb all over a swing, hang from it, or create a tent by placing a towel over it. Children can push their dolls, stuffed animals or dinosaurs on the swing, and learn about not getting hit by the returning swing. Swings are great for peek-a-boo, tickling toes, singing songs, and being silly with infants. They are great for toddlers to learn about climbing into, asking for pushes or swinging on their stomachs.
The second most important play equipment is a slide. A plastic toddler slide works great, but larger slides attached to swing sets or tree houses are also great. A slide placed on a hill and properly secured can also be great fun. Part of the slide is the stairs. Learning how to go up the stairs is just as important a skill as learning how to get into position at the top of the slide and control the landing. Slides are all about cause and effect. Children can put balls, dolls, cars and other toys down the slide as well to see how fast they move and how far they travel once off the slide. Slides act as an early science experiment teaching the laws of motion for young children. Slides develop gross motor skills, but also executive functioning skills, as children learn about height and fear, being in control or out of control, and managing the speed they feel comfortable with.
The third category which I would encourage for outdoor spaces is something to climb. This could be a climbing tree, a sturdy log construction, a climbing dome, or a swing set with a climbing wall. Climbing is all about risk assessment for children. With each step up or handhold, a child assesses if they are steady or about to fall. Children learn balance, hand-eye coordination, gross motor skills and fine motor skills through climbing. They also work on their emotional development as they deal with falls, bonks, and disappointments. Grass, sand, or mats made for impact will provide a relatively safe landing area under the climbing equipment. Hard compacted dirt is very unforgiving, as are rocks. There should be risk with climbing, but minimal chance of serious injury. Risky play builds children’s confidence in their abilities and teaches them to manage fears. By taking risks, they are setting patterns for trying new skills, even when difficult.
Outdoor spaces don’t have to be large, and they don’t need all of these elements immediately. Starting one step at a time, or one purchase at a time, works great. An infant is not ready for a slide or something to climb, but even newborns can enjoy water play in their warm bath. Most of all, outdoor spaces should be fun and relaxing for everyone, so include your comfort in your outdoor planning. Happy playing!
Hi! My name is Tessa and I am so glad that you have found my blog. I love teaching about parenting, childhood, nutrition and homeschooling. I am a lifelong learner who enjoys doing research and I hope to share this knowledge with others.
I graduated from Scripps College in California with a dual major in English and History. Not knowing where life was going to lead me, I became an au pair to a wonderful family with three boys under the age of 5 on a beautiful homestead in Switzerland where I discovered my love of picking fresh blueberries straight off the bush and that it really was okay for little ones to eat dirt. After a bit more wandering, I became first an assistant preschool teacher, and then a group lead qualified preschool teacher, at a Reggio Emilio inspired, developmentally appropriate preschool on two acres of land. I learned here that painting with fly swatters is great fun and that it is possible to have children outside in just about any weather.
I kept finding myself paired with special needs children and having volunteered in High School with this population, I pursued becoming a Special Education Teacher. Initially I became a secondary paraprofessional working with special needs 7-12th graders. With the help of an alternative licensure program, I became a licensed K-12 Special Education Teacher at a rural mountain school. Here is where I learned that potential is not defined by a labelled disability and that children of every age have an amazing capacity to surprise you. I also became a licensed foster parent while working as a Special Education Teacher and, over the next 7 years, I had 12 children come into my home through foster care. Some stayed for hours, others for a year. They ranged in age from 13 months old to 17 years old.
When COVID hit, I spent a year teaching English to English Language Learners in China and teaching early reading skills virtually to students in the US. I then took a job as an Intervention Teacher at a K-8 Waldorf charter school where I learned gnomes can be used to teach math and the joy of wet on wet water painting. Here I taught struggling students math, reading, and writing while having the privilege of starting my own family. Currently I am blessed to be a work from home mom with my rambunctious three year old in tow. Life has taught me to embrace challenges, which is why I am starting this blog. I wish to share the knowledge that I have learned through being a teacher, foster parent, and mother with other parents looking to parent intentionally and are interested in meeting their children where they are developmentally no matter their diverse needs.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
What should parents be doing every day with their toddlers? If you have asked this question before, here are some developmentally appropriate suggestions for how to set up your daily play with a two-year-old girl.
If you have a little girl in this age range, you might be considering starting preschool with them. They are curious and bright with so many questions. They seem ready to learn their letters and numbers, but if you have actually tried you will probably find that one minute they know what A is and the next they don’t. If you try to get them to sit, they end up under their chair or rolling around on the ground. Although it is tempting to start preschool at this age, I would wait till their brains and bodies are ready to process and retain the information you want them to learn. So what should we be doing with these little girls who seem so eager to learn?
If you have both girls and boys, you might already be aware of the vast differences between the species. Little boys in general seem determined to try to jump off the tallest rocks and you spend an astronomical amount of your time keeping them from injuring themselves, but they also seem almost proud of their injuries. Little girls can be just as active and energetic, or not, but seem to actually care about injuring themselves. At 2, both genders seem to delight in making giant messes, running around in circles and creating absolute chaos, but testosterone is already surging through little boys at this age causing them to seek additional adrenaline experiences. This isn’t to say all boys, or all girls, are the same. There are vast differences in temperament, personality and family dynamics, but I will write a separate blog for boys of this age because their needs usually are different than girls.
First, and foremost, children this age need several hours a day of outside time or movement play. Even if they are playing in the sand or drawing with chalk outside, that still counts because the feel of the sun on their face, the sound of birds chirping, and the smell of grass are still engaging their senses in ways that being indoors does not. Ideally, girls should be spending over an hour outside in the morning and in the afternoon. If not able to be outside, the time should be made up of indoor movement play that uses their whole body. If a child does not get these hours a day of either outside or movement time, they will show it at bedtime.
The second most important element of your schedule for this age group of girls is being around other children their own age. Aim for about 5 hours a week around other children from 1 to 5 years of age. This can be at the park, or an indoor play place, and can also count towards your outside or movement time. Even if your child has siblings, it is important for girls this age to still spend time around other children to develop language, social, and emotional skills. Making friendships is also an important developmental step for this age and seeing the same children on a regular basis is the best way to help your child make friends. Friendships allow children to practice their relationship skills and executive functioning skills. These are things like sharing, take turns, cooperative play, conversational skills, and having empathy for another child.
Creating Outdoor Spaces for Young Children
Movement Play for Young Children
The third most important element is sensory play. Two- and three-year-olds are still integrating their senses and this needs to happen before their brains will be ready for formalized learning. This should look like two or three 20-minute sessions of play dough, kinetic sand (if 3), dried beans, water play, or even helping you bake and playing with the dough. This would also include playing with instruments, playing with kid-safe flashlights in a tent, or driving toy cars along a toy road. Sensory play should rotate between texture, sound, balance and visual experiences.
The fourth element of a child’s day at this age should be open-ended art time. This should be separate than sensory play or outside/movement play. This would include drawing with large crayons, markers, finger paints, dot markers, shaving cream, large foam stickers, and large butcher paper or construction paper. This should be messy and I recommend a designated spot for this play. This art time should be all about the process and should not be geared towards any end product. This is also about sensory integration, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and cause and effect. Art smocks are also helpful.
There are some other elements that you can start to incorporate into your schedule as your child shows that they are ready for them. These are building blocks towards pre-academics. They develop executive function skills like focus, turn taking, and patience. Some girls will be ready for all of these things at 2 ½, while others may not be ready till closer to 3 ½.
The first is structured art projects with an end product. This is where you introduce smaller crayons, smaller markers, paint brushes, colored pencils, watercolors, kid scissors, and glue sticks. The fine motor skills needed to use smaller crayons and markers, paint brushes, and scissors don’t usually develop until closer to age 3. Before that age, children may also struggle with the sequence of steps needed to use these tools. Once your child is ready, you can replace two of your open art sessions a week with structured art sessions. These should be heavily parent led and supervised at first as your child learns new skills, but over time this should evolve into creating art projects together. For context, my oldest daughter was exactly 3 when she was ready for this and I used a child’s craft book for inspiration.
The last category is game time. This is when your child is ready to follow simple rules with game boards or cards. Pick games that you can adapt so there is no clear winner. Games like Duck, Duck, Goose or tag are great around this age. Games that involve taking turns and minor disappointments are also good to introduce. Look for game boards that are recommended for ages 3 or 4. You may have to adapt them though. This is a great time to also introduce real puzzles that you and your child do together. This would replace some of your sensory play sessions. For context, my oldest daughter was 2 and 9 months old when she was ready for this, but we started with just 10 minutes a few times a week.
Here is an example of what a daily schedule might look like for a 2-year-old girl.
