There is no greater gift that a parent can give to their child than love, but love can be a tricky concept to explain. Generally I try to teach my boys about love as much through my actions as through my words but that isn’t always enough. So just in time for Valentine’s Day I have this fantastic list of 65 Books About Love for Kids!
Wow! That is a lot of books! I really hope that this list helped you find just what you were looking for. If there is a book about love that your family has enjoyed together please share it in the comments below!
Our preschool space activities unit is finally wrapping up, but I have a few activities left to share with you. We made nebula slime, planet toast, and I’m even offering my readers a free download of my latest educational eBook for kids! Let’s dive in!
Nebula Slime
This was my first attempt at making slime (I know, I know, ‘what rock have I been hiding under??’) and it wasn’t initially a success but the second attempt was a total win! I was trying to keep my slime recipe a little safer by avoiding Borax. Instead I used StaFlo liquid starch. Honestly I’m not positive it’s that much more ‘natural’ than Borax but I figured if it’s safe enough to spray on clothes that are worn against your body all day then it can’t be too bad. We still made a habit of washing our hands thoroughly after handling just in case. I’ll show you the recipe, and then give you some tips and tricks so that your first batch turns out perfectly!
Recipe:
1 5oz bottle Clear Elmer’s Glue
About 1/2 C. StaFlo Liquid Starch
Food Coloring
Glitter
Pour the glue into a glass bowl and add food coloring and glitter until the desired appearance is reached. Once you are satisfied with the color, begin mixing in the StaFlo in small quantities. You can use a spoon initially, but eventually you will need to use your hands to really work it together. It’s a little like making a roux – the slower you combine the ingredients the more easily they mix. Continue adding StaFlo until your slime has reached your desired consistency. I prefer a less sticky slime so I used just over 1/2 C.
Tips:
Go out and buy clear glue instead of trying to use some white glue you have around the house. The clear has a much more attractive appearance. When I used white glue the end result resembled a pile of intestines – believe me it wasn’t pretty!!
Store your slime in a jar or sealed bag – it will dry out and develop a weird film on top. Yuck!
To create the nebula affect in the pictures, I made 2 batches of slime – black with silver glitter, pink with black and silver glitter, and purple with silver and pink glitter. Complete each batch separately and then swirl together.
Planet Toast
Did you ever make milk toast as a kid? It was a favorite treat growing up and proved even more fun now! Best of all, you get to eat your art when you finish! This was an absolute hit with Nugget and Goose and we will definitely be doing it again. We ate our toast with just a bit of butter and jam but I’d love to see this worked into some seriously fancy grilled cheese sandwiches!
Recipe:
Several slices of bread, preferably white or a light colored wheat bread
food coloring
milk
round cookie cutter
clean paintbrushes or basting brushes
Instructions:
Use the cookie cutter to slice the bread into circles. Pour a small amount of milk into several small ramekins and add food coloring to reach your desired colors. Now the fun part: use a paintbrush to paint designs on your bread. Once complete toast and enjoy!
What about those extra bread crusts??
Don’t throw your crusts away! That’s just wasteful and you’d be missing out on a seriously awesome recipe. Instead save your bread crusts to make this delicious bread pudding recipe from Rachel at A Mother Far From Home! While you’re there – check out her website. She has some fantastic posts on schedules for babies and toddlers and lots of tasty recipes.
Free Space E-Book for Kids!
I was trying to think of a fun and different printable I could make to go with this unit, and to be honest it felt like so much has already been covered. We have the printable playmats, the nomenclature cards, what else could I make?So I decided to offer my readers a free download of my latest eBook! This is the first book in a new series of educational books for kids called ‘Fast Facts with Nugget & Goose’. The eBook is available on Amazon.com for $2.99 but I have a .PDF copy available for download FREE in my Digital Resource Library! I really hope you’ll check it out, and if you enjoy it please feel free to write a review on Amazon.com.
The 24 page book features beautiful watercolor illustrations and lots of entertaining and educational facts about the planets in our solar system. If you don’t already have your access code for the digital resource library, just sign up below and one will be emailed to you right away. I hope you enjoy!!
I hope you’ve enjoyed all of the fun preschool space activities over the past few weeks. We sure enjoyed experimenting with them! If you missed my other posts you can see part 1, part 2, and a special feature on space themed books for kids by clicking the links. Comment below with any ideas for themes you would like to see in the future!
Happy Independence Day! Are you going to celebrate the holiday by watching fireworks? My boys are completely terrified by the loud noise of fireworks, so the entire weekend has been one long cry fest as our neighbors celebrate (over… and over… and over!) Luckily we have had lots of educational 4th of July fun of our own. If you missed all of the patriotic activities I posted about last week, be sure to check out 4th of July Tot School: Part 1!
Montessori Tonging Tray
Tonging is a funny name for a really fun Montessori-inspired activity. As the name implies, children use a set of tongs to transfer objects. Similar to spooning and pouring activities, tonging develops hand strength and muscle control necessary for writing.
For this activity I used a set of star shaped plastic ice cubes that I picked up from Target last year. I found a set of small tongs at Bed, Bath & Beyond, although this set from Amazon looks similar. Initially I introduced the activity as a simple transfer from one dish to another, then as Goose mastered the tongs I increased the difficulty by adding a color sorting element. As a surprise I didn’t mention that the stars are intended for freezing, so after working with them at room temperature several times Goose was shocked to find them frozen one day!
I also allowed Nugget to handle the frozen stars in a basin of water one day for some patriotic sensory play.
Red, White & Blue Bead Stringing
Our next Tot Tray featured a dish full of red, white and blue pony beads and a selection of pipe cleaners. The task was simple: string the beads on a pipe cleaner to make a bracelet or necklace. The mechanics of stringing alone were complicated enough for Nugget, while I encouraged Goose to design a pattern and stick to it. They both had so much fun with this simple activity and were eager to wear their ‘fancy beads’ at the 4th of July parade.
Independence Day Learning Resources
Our Tot Trays were augmented with a wide selection of historical and geographical learning materials that I have picked up over the years. Some are a bit advanced for Goose but he and Nugget both seemed to enjoy looking at the pictures as I read them different facts. Hopefully they each picked up some of the basics, at least.
The Story of George Washington by Patricia Pingry. This book is part of a fantastic series of board books about historical figures. We read the story of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin Franklin. The series also includes the story of America’s Birthday, Gettysburg, the Star Spangled Banner, Rosa Parks and more. I hope to add the rest of our collection soon.
Fandex Family Field Guides: Presidents. This guide is something I picked up last year at a consignment sale on a whim, and it turned out to be a valuable resource. Each page shows a portrait of the president and offers a brief bio. The stories are short enough that even Goose could follow them, and he delighted in picking the funniest looking presidents so I could read their stories. Even I have a hard time keeping some of the more obscure presidents straight (I’m looking at you John Tyler and Millard Fillmore!) So I don’t know how much Goose will really remember but if nothing else he is learning that history can be fun and that lesson alone is valuable.
Famous Folks of America (by Reading Discovery) and U.S. Presidents Flashcards: both of these materials along with the dry erase US Map came from the Dollar Spot at Target last year. The book is written at a 3rd grade level, and features short stories telling about key moments in US history. I didn’t have high hopes for it, but the stories proved enjoyable and the kid-friendly illustrations helped keep the boys’ attention. The flashcards have lovely portraits of each president but the facts were dry and my boys just aren’t ready to benefit from them beyond looking at the pictures. Really the flashcards were a little redundant with the Fandex so if you get that, you probably don’t need anything else for a while.
Montessori Salt Writing Practice
Salt writing is a wonderful way for children to practice early writing skills. All you need is a small wooden tray lined with a piece of brightly colored paper, and a little salt. I have seen people use sugar or sand for this activity but in my experience salt works best at discouraging children from sticking their hands in it.
I let Goose use a chopstick to trace out letters in the salt, and then give the tray a quick shake to clear the writing and start over. (It’s like a primitive etch-a-sketch!) It can be helpful to provide some degree of direction so I like to use our Montessori Cursive Alphabet Flashcards. (Click the link to learn how to get your own free copy!).
Free Do-A-Dot Flag Printable
This free printable is designed for use with Do-A-Dot markers. The download includes 2 versions, one with letters denoting which colors to use, and one with blank circles. This simple activity is a fun and easy way to work on letter recognition, and fine motor skills.
Do I sound like a broken record going on and on about fine motor skills? They really are vital to so many higher level skills that children need. Sadly kids today are losing their fine and gross motor skills at an alarming rate, so these are the types of activities that they need more than ever.
My final 4th of July Tot Tray was a punching activity using this old star-shaped scrapbooking punch. I provided strips of red cardstock and a tray to catch the stars and let Goose go wild. The punch requires a good amount of hand strength so this was an ideal way to let him feel like he was playing while still increasing muscle control. We did this activity at Christmas last year using gold paper and I was pleasantly surprised to see how far his hand strength has come in the last 6 months.
Simple punches like this are an easy addition to any tot school unit, because the design makes it difficult (though probably not impossible) for a child to injure himself. Traditional office-style hole punches are a bit more prone to pinching skin so I would save those until you feel confident that your child can handle it safely.
Happy 4th of July!
I hope you have a wonderful holiday full of family and friends! Do you have any secrets for helping your little ones tolerate noisy fireworks? Comment below. I need all the help I can get!
We are rolling right on through our farm themed tot school unit, and so far we have been having a blast! If you missed Part I, be sure to check it out. There were some really great crafts, recipes and activities for preschool or tot school. Today, our farm unit is going to the birds – literally! All of our crafts and activities revolve around poultry, so we will be feeding poultry, gathering eggs, gluing feathers and much more. Let’s get started!
Feed the Chickens Counting Mats
I think counting mats are such a fun way to combine fine motor skill development with early math skills. Plus, they make counting just a little more fun. I designed these mats for counting up to 20, although you could easily use only the first 10 to match your child’s skill level. On each card I have featured one or more bird from the farm, and these birds are hungry! I recommend using dry corn kernels but you can use any dry beans or small counter that you have at home. As always, any small object (such as corn kernels) can post a choking hazard to small children so use your own best judgement.
While Goose enjoyed working his way through all 20 counting mats, Nugget had fun helping by trying to name what type of birds were on each card. It’s always great when a learning activity can include both an older and younger sibling!
Visit my Digital Resource Library to download and print your free copy of my Feed the Chickens Counting Mats. Don’t have an access code? Easy! Just sign up below and one will be emailed to you right away!
Fruit & Veggie Search Sensory Bin
I wish I could take credit for this activity but all the credit for this one goes to Kim at Life Over C’s. Definitely check out her site for some fantastic learning activities and to download the printables for this fun activity.
This activity features a printable mat showing a wide assortment of fruits and veggies, along with a matching set of fruit and veggie cards. A quick pass through the laminator and a few Velcro tabs later and you have a fun and educational sensory bin search! I used Popsicle sticks and card stock to make garden signs that I adhered inside our sensory bin with a hot glue gun. This was definitely one of our cuter activities, and digging through the beans to find each fruit or vegetable kept Goose occupied for quite a while.
When we began I figured this would be one of those short-lived activities that wasn’t challenging enough for Goose but was a bit advanced for Nugget, boy was I wrong! It turns out that Goose’s fruit and veggie vocabulary isn’t quite as advanced as I thought and he learned a lot as he dug out each card and then let Nugget help him find the match.
Of course, soon the tractor was digging out the vegetables, and I had to watch Nugget like a hawk to be sure he didn’t try to eat the black beans, but overall I would call this one a win!
Decorate Your Own Rooster Craft
For this project we decided to create our own pet roosters! Goose named his ‘Captain Picklepuss’, which is of course a very respectable name for a rooster. We decorated our roosters using glue, feathers, crayons, and pretty much anything else Goose dug out of our craft closet. The end result was a rooster that would be the talk of any barnyard, I’m sure.
Visit my Digital Resource Library to download and print your free Rooster Printable. Don’t have an access code? Easy! Just sign up below and one will be emailed to you right away!
Egg Gathering Imaginative Play
My boys have very active imaginations and adore pretend play. I think that the creative thinking skills developed during imaginative play are vital to future success, so we put a lot of emphasis on it in our house. When shopping for toys I always avoid what Alton Brown calls ‘Unitaskers’. These toys that can only be played with in one specific way just seem limiting and are rarely the toys that see repeated play.
For this activity I made nests out of paper bags (instructions below) and then filled each nest with a few plastic Easter eggs. We were a little short on stuffed chickens so our nests included a variety of feathered occupants. After staging the nests, I also laid out a cowboy hat for costuming, and an egg carton for additional sorting practice. I gave each boy a basket and encouraged them to gather eggs and just have fun. Not surprisingly, Nugget decided to fill his basket with poultry and lovingly carry them throughout the house, carefully clucking and quacking at each one. This is such a sweet age! Goose took the task a little more seriously and was very intent on gathering all of the eggs, and opening each one in search of leftover Easter candy. As if candy would last that long in our house!
They returned to this activity several times this week, and each time they found new ways to interact with the nests. My favorite was when I walked into the room to find Nugget sitting very carefully on a plastic egg. Evidently his brother told him if he sat still long enough it would hatch! Oh how I hated to burst that bubble!
Supplies:
Several Brown Paper Lunch Bags
Scissors
Glue
Plastic eggs
Instructions:
Begin by cutting off the top 2/3 of your lunch bags. You will need 2 bags per nest. (Don’t throw away the tops – I will be showing you next week how to use them for a fun craft!)
Cut thin slices from the open edge of your bag down to the fold (see images). Don’t worry about making it perfect, messy is great for this project!
Open your bag and then crinkle it in to a ball. The wrinklier the better!
Repeat steps 1-3 on your second lunch bag, then open both wrinkled bags.
Place one bag inside the other and using a rolling / scrunching motion to create a nest shape.
Fill with plastic eggs, candy, or whatever else your little heart desires.
Our Favorite Farm Themed Books
We had so many farm themed books in our collection, that this was one tot school unit that hardly required a trip to the library. Here are a few of our favorites:
This is a book that I picked up a few years ago at a consignment sale, and it has been a favorite of ours ever since. It’s pretty short, but the novelty lies in the fact that it places you inside the tractor. It’s a fun short read perfect for a toddler who is just getting into tractors.
This is the original Otis book, although there are now several in the series. It tells the tale of a sweet tractor and his friendship with a lonely calf. The illustrations are striking and the plot is well-written enough that parents and children should both enjoy this story.
This is a cute book about the morning that the farmer overslept. I like the fact that the farmer is a woman, since too many farm books only feature male farmers. It also has a nice rhythm that makes reading it aloud pleasurable.
Moo by Matthew Van Fleet
Matthew Van Fleet is famous for his beautifully photographed and highly interactive children’s books. Each page features tactile stimulation and moving parts, sure to hold even the youngest child’s attention.
Giles Andreae is back again with this tour through the barnyard. Each page features a different animal and a short rhyme. The illustrations are fun and bright and the rhymes are playful. It’s definitely worth adding to your bookshelf.
This book can be a little tough to find, but it’s worth the effort. It’s chock full of photographs of farm animals, equipment and even produce. My boys love lifting the flaps, and I love the extra questions at the bottom of each page to encourage critical thinking or find hidden extras.
This is a fun and silly story about how a message can be distorted as it gets passed from person to person (or animal to animal as it were). It’s great for an older preschooler who can understand the concept of pass it on, but the humor might be lost on younger children.
I love love love Karma Wilson. Her books never disappoint, and always include an attractive rhyming structure along with a playful plot. If you buy one fiction book from this list – buy this one. It’s just plain fun to read!
Have you enjoyed our Farm themed tot school unit so far? Comment below!
Be sure to check back later this week to see the final portion of our farm unit. Some of the best is still yet to come!