When the Thermometer Hits 90 and the Kids Hit the Walls There comes a point every summer—usually around mid-July—when my neighbor’s kid shows up at the door in swim trunks, a snorkel mask pushed up on his forehead, and announces: “We’re bored and it’s too hot to exist.” That’s when I know it’s time to…
The Brilliant Simplicity of a Fat Marker and a Circle I discovered do-a-dot markers completely by accident. A parent donated a pack to my toddler classroom because her daughter had outgrown them, and I tossed them into the art supply bin without much thought. The next morning, an 18-month-old pulled one out, popped off the…
Why Your Baby Needs to Get Gloriously Messy The photo that lives rent-free in my memory is of a seven-month-old sitting in a high chair, completely covered—hair, cheeks, eyelashes, all ten fingers—in mashed avocado, grinning like she’d just discovered the meaning of life. Her mom looked horrified. I looked delighted. Because that green, squishy, spectacular…
That Bucket of Chalk Is Hiding a Hundred Activities There’s a half-crushed bucket of sidewalk chalk on my front porch that has been there since roughly 2019. Pieces are broken, labels are peeled off, and at least three colors have been chewed on by someone’s toddler. And yet, that battered bucket has provided more hours…
Shapes Are Everywhere (Once You Teach a Child to See Them) There’s a moment I wait for every school year, and it always happens within the first two weeks of our shapes unit. A child will be eating lunch, pause mid-bite, hold up a triangular sandwich half, and announce to the entire table: “My sandwich…
The Three-Dollar Bottle That Stopped a Meltdown I made my first sensory bottle out of desperation. It was a Wednesday afternoon, the classroom was overstimulated from a fire drill, and one of my four-year-olds was spiraling into a full-blown tantrum. I grabbed a clear water bottle from my bag, dumped in some glitter glue and…
Discover 25 outdoor nature activities for kids ages 2-10. From nature scavenger hunts to mud kitchens to seasonal explorations, get your children outside and learning.
The Activity That Turns Any Yard Into an Adventure My five-year-old nephew once spent forty-five minutes searching our completely ordinary suburban backyard for “something that makes a sound when you shake it.” He tried shaking rocks (nope), sticks (slight rattle), a pinecone (nothing), and finally a dried seed pod from the garden that made a…
The Day I Stopped Dreading Scissor Time Confession: for my first year of teaching preschool, I avoided scissor activities like the plague. Twenty three-year-olds with sharp objects? Hair getting cut, paper confetti everywhere, at least one child holding the scissors upside down and looking at me for help? No thank you. Then a veteran teacher…
The Two-Ingredient Wonder That Feels Like Magic I keep a running list of reactions from children touching cloud dough for the first time. My all-time favorite: a three-year-old who squeezed a handful, watched it crumble through her fingers, squeezed it again into a solid ball, looked at me with total bewilderment, and said: “How is…
