• Color Sorting with Yogurt Cups

    My love for recycling yogurt containers in play based learning continues to grow and grow. It makes such good sense. It gives extended life to single use plastic. It cuts down on the additional plastic of which many store bought toys and learning materials are made. They’re not an eyesore. And they’re free! If your little one is expressing interest in color recognition and sorting, this activity is a super simple one to add to your learning times. (To make this activity even more simple, you could also replace the painted pasta with pom poms or other loose parts for sorting.) MATERIALS Assorted Dry Pasta Assorted Colors of Acrylic Paint…

  • 4 Free Advent Resources for Families

    In my years as a nanny, I’ve spent a lot of time searching for Christmas and Advent activities and resources that would invite us to a place of remembrance together without feeling too rigid; activities that weren’t too expensive and that wouldn’t leave behind excessive clutter.  Over the years I’ve collected the following resources and wanted to gather them all into one central location to share with you: Rob Wilson Nativity—I love the illustration style and design of this nativity. I first found it last year and we simply cut out the pieces and glued them to Cheerio boxes to make them sturdier. This year I cut them out and…

  • Ephesians 3:19 | Memory Verse Collection

    I’ve already made about twenty lists to organize myself and my thoughts for the Christmas season: people to see and gifts to buy and cookies to bake and ornaments to make and menus to plan and blog posts to compose and cards to send, etc. I’ve already gone to the craft store far more times than one should and have spent far more time than I’d like perusing Amazon for the perfect toddler gifts. There’s been very little quiet and stillness and it actually has nothing to do with the fact that we have a two year old in our midst. My mind just grows exceptionally chaotic this time of…

  • Free Christmas Cards Printable

    My Christmas memories involve a lot of creating and crafting. It felt as if our dining room table was just as frequently a crafting table as it was a place for eating. It was often covered in pine cones and jingle bells and cinnamon cutout ornaments and ribbon. I look back on it all pretty fondly now. We would create amongst ourselves all season long, but it was also something we would casually invite friends to join us in because while cookie decorating is fun, one can only consume so many of those. All of this is simply to say that creativity has become deeply entwined in the way that…