These free printable scavenger hunts are a great tool for encouraging children to immerse themselves in nature and look a little closer at the world around them with deep appreciation. This sort of play magically manages to nurture physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and social growth in children. And they’re fun for adults as well! Our typical day involves a fair amount of time outside and while most of that time is devoted to simple free play, from time to time we’ll take one of our more structured activities or art projects outdoors. My days are currently spent with two two year olds and so I wasn’t sure what the response…
-
-
Rainbow Stickers
Stickers are a wonderful activity for practicing fine motor skills. The boys went through a few months of requesting them every day. But there were two problems: Not all stickers are toddler friendly. Some of them are challenging for me to peel the backing off. And so instead of an independent activity while I wash up the breakfast dishes, it turned into an activity that required my constant hovering and more nimble fingers. Sometimes the speed at which toddlers fly through those $7 sticker books makes me feel like I need to ration them out each day. And then I was at the Dollar Tree and saw the white sticker…
-
Play Dough Face Placemats
We’re in a season where I receive multiple requests each day for play dough. While most of our time with play dough is simple free play, I wondered if I could occasionally use that play dough fascination for some sort of play based activity to nurture emotional growth. So, I created these printable play dough mats to create faces together. We referenced our emotion books to pick out emotions to make. If you haven’t made one, you could simply ask them what emotion they’d like to make. Even if the faces don’t quite capture the emotion accurately, it’s a helpful way to recognize the components of each expression. It was…
-
Mother’s Day Interview + Cards
I’ve always been a fan of child interviews. I love their candor and the way that it captures a particular version of their quickly changing selves. It’s nice whenever daycares and family members help little ones to show appreciation on Mother’s Day. But if you’re the one who is with your child day in and out, I think it’s totally appropriate to help them express their love and appreciation, even if it’s for you! I worked on this card with Graham to give to me on Mother’s Day and I feel no shame in that whatsoever. Primarily, this interview/card combination serves as a sentimental keepsake for a mother on Mother’s…
-
Deuteronomy 6:5 | Memory Verse Collection
This verse felt fitting for our family this month because as a two year old boy, Graham is currently very interested in strength. And I have been in a season of feeling prompted to lay down the miscellaneous good in order to make space for the truest good. I’ve grown distracted by chasing after all the good things instead of starting with the truest good and allowing it to trickle down through the rest of my life. The good things are only good within the context of proper relationship. If our relationship with God is out of alignment, then we can’t hold the good things well. They become idols and…
-
A Book of Emotions
This project has been a long lingering item on my to do list, but now that it’s finished, I love flipping through the pages with the boys. It’s been such a simple, helpful tool for nurturing emotional growth in little ones. Since Graham was a tiny baby, I’ve attempted to capture a spectrum of emotions with hopes of documenting the fleeting seasons. And the more that I documented, the more that I wanted to eventually put them into a book as a tool for building an emotional vocabulary. It’s been a priority for us from pretty early on to give him words for expressing what he’s feeling. We wanted to…
-
A Book About Me
I’m so excited about these new book projects we’ve been working on! I’m finding myself prompting Graham to show everyone the book he made, because I’m just so happy about the way they turned out. They’ve been a fun way to channel creativity into a long form project instead of once and done crafts and they’re something I expect they’ll enjoy looking through once they’re finished. It has also been such a fun way to connect with them and offer new language and concepts. I’m excited to finally share them here for you to make your own. Some of the pages are self explanatory, but I’ll walk you through a…
-
Animal Movement Cards
It’s presently winter and while we still try to get outside each day to run off some energy and breathe in the fresh air, some days are too windy or wet or frigid. And yet, energy abounds in toddlers. These cards are useful when children are in need of redirection. When their energy started to lead to movement that was too much for indoors, we would sometimes use these cards to satisfy the desire for movement. Depending on the age and imagination of your child, simply naming an animal might be sufficient to spark some pretend play. But for a one and two year old, the visual of the animal…
-
Psalm 28:7 | Memory Verse Collection
There are many potential themes for the songs we sing with our lives. We can sing songs of accomplishment, songs of anxiety, songs of self-sufficiency, songs of overwhelm, songs of hurry, songs of importance, songs of the almost good. But allowing our song to be one of praise suggests an anchoring, a steadiness throughout the chaos that is life. Praise is the song that is appropriate for every occasion, when other songs become irrelevant. It suggests that for every circumstance, we turn to the God who is present and faithful and enough. It suggests that even when life is hard, God is comfort. That when life is good, God is the…
-
8 Valentine’s Day Activities and Crafts
Children have made Valentine’s Day significantly more fun for me. Both as a nanny and parent, it’s been fun to incorporate that theme into some of our day to day activities and make some keepsake crafts that I’ve been genuinely happy to put on display. I wanted to collect some of our favorites from this year to share with you all in one place. All of the activities are suitable for toddler and preschool aged children. Several of the crafts would also appeal to school aged children. They’re ones that I imagine we’ll return to each year with new inspiration and skill sets. Color Sorting—We did the same color sorting…
