the road to inspired learning
My littlest guy was desperate to read when he was just five-years-old. He asked me to teach him to “read and spell and write and type.” We did the phonics-y thing. He knew all of his letters and sounds before he was four-years-old. Because I wanted him to learn to love stories, we read. And […]
Many people have used my pre-writing practice pages for preschoolers and asked for more! I’m adding some easy to use (no prep!) activity pages. These include nine shapes for your student to trace: diamond, rectangle, square, hexagon, triangle, circle, oval, star, and heart. These pages are fantastic for fine motor practice as well as reviewing […]
In the past I’ve shared some fun classes for preschoolers: Cooking Art, Little Builders, Pet Pals, and Let’s Make a Mess. Those classes focused on science and art. What about a preschool class focusing on social studies? One easy way to do this is with a class about community helpers. Find people in your neighborhood […]
All little people like stickers, right? Here is another set of counting cards. This time it’s a farm friends theme, and they are so simple to use: color, add small round stickers, cut, and decide make into a booklet or just keep them as cards. These cards are great for: fine motor skills (coloring, sticking) counting […]
I love browsing all the amazing themed sensory boxes on Pinterest. But looking is about as far as I get. I am not going to create and house a different bin for 27 themes or 42 picture books. But I really wanted to have sensory bins for my sensory seeker. So I determined to keep it simple. I […]
We’ve been working on numbers and quantities. I needed something a little more motivating than counting blocks or cars, so I made these counting cards for my sticker loving child! Super easy to use: Print (on cardstock, if you have it). Color. Sticker. Use. We made ours into a little book because my kiddo also loves […]
Children who have lived in institutions need high structure. And I am very, very random. That means I am not great at structure. But now I have a daughter who has been told her entire life what would come next, what to do next. She knew what would happen next. Every day. Our first few days […]
Last week I shared a simple preschool bag activity, Pretty Princess Beads. I have made several bags in the past week in preparation for our trip, and I want to share another super simple one today. Simple means it took ten minutes to put together. Hooray for simple! I purchased a large container of "gems" at […]
I started to brainstorm yesterday for a few simple (I can't really emphasize that word enough) busy bags I could take with me to Ecuador. Since my brain juice is running on low, I resorted to an old standby that Simon played with more times than I can tell. He had a bag with pipecleaners […]
What Are Preschool Busy Bags? Preschool Busy Bags are ready-to-go activities for your toddler or preschool. Learn more about the benefits of preschool busy bags in this post. Preschool Busy Bag Storage I kept mine in a large plastic container with dividers. Here are a few links with photos of how others stay organized Zipper Pouches […]
I'm trying. Trying to simplify things around here. You already read about my ridiculously simple lunch idea (that I heart so much). Here is another ridiculously simple idea. For school. For Simon. I printed out math ideas (red), writing-fine motor ideas (yellow), and learning to read ideas (green). I cut them up and stuffed them […]
January is National Soup Month! How did I know? The Homeschool Share January Calendar told me so. So, I skimmed through the lessons on Homeschool Share, and decided Simon and I would read and compare various versions, use the nutrition lesson, discuss food sources, talk about sharing (and honesty!), and measure/weigh fruits and vegetables. This is […]
For December I decided to make something different than the regular Kindergarten Kits, so I put together two files of games. {we heart games!} The first file includes seven math games: Race to Twenty Find the Cookies Snowman Family Tally Clear the Board Penguin Knock-Out Christmas Cookie Graph Penguin Sums You can download these games […]
We've been nature studying our way through the Spectacular Spiders NaturExplorer Unit. Since Simon was so intrigued by these eight-legged crawlies, I made him a simple kindergarten kit. You can download the spider printables by clicking on the image below. You can find some fun spider school ideas on my Pinterest Board.
Here is a fun logic-mathy activity for your preschool or kindergarten student. Elijah has Colorku, and I was thinking it would be fun to have something similar (but simpler) for Simon. I found some printable things online, but I didn't want to use a bucket of colored ink. So, the idea for Paint Chip Sudoku […]
Simon implored me to create an ocean-themed Kindergarten Kit because he wanted to learn about creatures in the deep. The clip-art in the kit is mostly cute fish, but we read plenty of books about lantern fish, angler fish, and other horrifying creepiness lurking through the abyss! Sometimes the printing and cutting and laminating is […]
Simon loves to look for things; it’s fun for him. I like to capitalize on fun, so I created a few word hunts to help him learn some sight words (and to aid in practicing tally marks). Here’s what I did for this activity: 1. I wrote all the words on sticky notes and stuck […]
Eighteen months ago, I published a Learning with LEGO lapbook for my older son, Elijah. My younger son is now just as in love with LEGO as his older brother, so {this afternoon} I decided it was time to create a junior version. Simon is delighted! I will report back once we’ve built our brains […]
These week I'm offering some free printables that go along with NaturExplorer's Incredible Creeks study. We love these nature studies! Four days of creek adventures Three different creeks Two curious boys One fearless father It all adds up to real learning. A favorite moment was finding a salamander larva. We also brought home a crawdad […]
This week I’ve blogged about pre-writing activities. Here is a small compilation of ideas from around the web and links back to my posts as well. Check out Amy’s blog post about Paint Bag Writing. We have one of these; Simon happily doodles with a q-tip and dances with his fingers on his paint bag […]