If You Could Only Buy One Children’s Book….

I think I have found a good one. I was at the local used book store searching for American Girl books for my older daughter when I came upon a copy of The 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury selected by Janet Schulman for three dollars.
Upon glancing through the book, I realized that we actually [...]

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From the Library Bag — Reading with a three and six year old

Since my oldest daughter started first grade last week, we made it to the library to get new books on Friday. We managed to get a bunch of books, but my three and a half year old’s favorite, by far, is The Origami Master, by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and illustrated by Aki Sogabe.
I found this [...]

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ASL Playgroup — A Walk Through the Neighborhood Theme

Young children are just beginning to discover the world around them. For toddlers and preschoolers, the neighborhood is their world. So, learning signs for the places and people in their neighborhood seems like an important theme.
BOOKS:
I had a hard time finding the perfect book or set of books for this theme. Perhaps [...]

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Did You Guess Whose Hands These Were?

I showed you these a few days ago, so now it is time to show you my finished puppet. I am really happy with how he turned out. He is a lovely shade of bright green, with a huge smile. His crown is complete with red and purple beads.

Now I just need [...]

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ASL Playgroup — Colors Theme

Teaching toddlers and preschoolers to recognize colors by name is a popular theme without even considering teaching the ASL signs to go with them. There are many resources available to teach colors that can be adapted to learning the ASL signs. I have compiled a few of my favorites here that I have [...]

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This post brought to you by the letter M

I just finished making this pillow for my youngest daughter. She loves purple and picked out the yarn with me at the craft store. She brought it with her to bed tonight and as we were saying our good nights, she turned it upside down and told me, “This is what a W looks [...]

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Preparing for Easter with my girls

My mother in law was kind enough to purchase some Easter themed cookie cutters for us to use this year. We made the dough yesterday and rolled, baked and decorated today. As you can see from the different cookies, I have a three and a six year old. We used plastic bags [...]

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ASL Playgroup — Farm Animal Theme

Why are farm animals so popular in children’s books and why do we spend so much time teaching our babies how to make animal noises? I am not sure, but I do know that animal themes are easy to plan and great for engaging young children. I like doing a farm animal theme [...]

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Everything about Dancing Ballerinas

Doesn’t every little girl love ballerinas? After finishing Rapunzel, I had some new ideas for my puppets’ hair. I decided a ballerina would be the perfect puppet for trying a new design idea. Although ballerinas often wear their hair in a bun, I think girls love dolls with long hair; this ballerina [...]

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Wolves in Children’s Books

Wolves seem to be in every other fairy tale that I read with my kids. I guess that when they were written, wolves were a real fearsome beast. Here are a few of my favorite stories that have wolves in them:

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
I started a Scieszka/Smith collection before [...]

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