My three-year-old loves to help out in the kitchen. He’s now at a point where if I get out my mini-chopper, he runs over and asks me what we’re making. This is an appliance that terrified him just a few short
Preschool in the Kitchen: Hummus
If You Don’t Have It, Make It: Woodshop Edition
While we are a far cry from homesteaders, we would like to instill in our children some sense of self-reliance. Rather than run out to the store and buy every little thing, if it’s at all possible for us to
Preschool Science: The Walking Rainbow
To reinforce the color-mixing ideas we’d talked about previously, we tried another experiment with food-coloring and water. This demonstration relies on the tendency of liquids to reach equilibrium. When we connect the jars, the water will flow until it has
Preschool Science: Color Mixing with Ice
We have been talking about boiling, melting, freezing, and states of matter with our preschooler, so we tried this simple color-mixing activity. First, we made blue, red, and yellow ice cubes. We needed five of each color for this activity,
Puzzles for Baby
We loooooove puzzles at our house, but how do you know when baby is ready for puzzles and where do you start? First of all, puzzles require fine motor control. If your baby can put together MegaBlocks or something similar,
Montessori: Honor the Work of Childhood
Several months ago, I began doing some research on Maria Montessori’s methods. Her writing is rich with insights, not simply about teaching, but about the ways we think about and interact with our children. I have made a few deliberate
Preschool Math: Making Groups of Ten
Here’s a quick and fun activity to introduce pairs that add to ten — important math facts to memorize early! We used our Unifix cubes, but Duplos, Legos, or any other connecting blocks would work as well. I made stacks
Boundless Energy: Awesome Preschool Science Activity
This week, our marble set has been working overtime. Â We engineered a wall of pipes and tracks to run our marbles down, and we’ve been using it to explore how potential and kinetic energy work. Â We began with a short
Little Green Thumb: Gardening with a Preschooler
One of our big summer goals for this year has been keeping a vegetable garden. We tried last year but without much success (weeds, squash bugs, some kind of hex on our peppers…), so we are being more deliberate and
What We Are Building
Every single day, we are making stuff in this house. Â And I don’t just mean messes. Â Every day, we are using our hands and our brains to put things together. Â Here are our favorite projects this week. Puzzles It has