Ages & Stages Archives

Learning Based on the Interests of Your Child

Learning in these early years is spelled P-L-A-Y. Although I love to share a variety of ways to “teach” your child various concepts, the best way your child can learn is by playing, and specifically when you play with…

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Supermarket Scavenger Hunt

I often go to the grocery store by myself on the weekends, but occasionally I’ll take the boys with me. Inevitably, someone ends up getting upset about not getting the preferred oatmeal or the candy at the checkout counter….

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Number Snake Threading (made with plastic eggs)

This post was inspired by our caterpillar counting post from last year. As I was staring down some leftover plastic easter eggs trying to think of a way to repurpose them, this post came to mind. A few snips…

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Jelly Bean Guessing Game

Do you have a million jelly beans and Easter eggs from yesterday? Here’s a simple and educational way to use both! This game is great for cognitive development…your child will have to listen to the sound each egg makes…

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Flower Patterning with Lemongrass-Scented Playdough

We had lots of fun making and playing with this playdough. And I absolutely love the fresh scent of the lemongrass essential oil (which I already had on hand from the Natural Mosquito Spray we made last year)! There…

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Beaded Rainbow

We had lots of fun making this beaded rainbow. We all pitched in on each individual color and took our time. Putting the beads on the pipe cleaners is great for fine motor development! Here’s what you’ll need: Pipe…

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Animal Cracker Counting and One-to-One Correspondence Practice

Little Brother is just a few months shy of being the exact same age that Big Brother was when I started this blog! Crazy! As with most second-born children, I am much more relaxed this time around. I now…

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Bible-Based Sensory Tub: Moses, the Plagues & and the Red Sea

We had some sensory fun exploring one of the Old Testament Bible stories this morning using some colored rice and random “props” to represent the ten plagues. Thanks to our Jesus Storybook Bible on CD (our absolute favorite…

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Cubed Cheese Sculptures

Looking to make lunch time or snack time a little more interactive? The boys had TONS of fun creating sculptures using cubed cheese and toothpicks! We’ve been holed up in the house all week due to Big Brother (and…

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Pretend Play: Valentine Cookie Bakery

I can’t take credit for this idea: Valerie from Frugal Family Fun is the genius behind this fun pretend play activity! I was motivated to make these felt cookies because we are in charge of Parents Night Out at our…

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T is for Tent

It has been a while since we’ve done an alphabet craft, but since we’re sticking with our camping theme, I thought it would be fun to do a tent craft with the letter “t”. I chose to do the lower-case…

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Outdoor Sticky Collage

I’ve been seeing all sorts of fun sticky table ideas floating around the blogosphere and I was excited to them with our boys. The last few weeks have been absolutely beautiful here, so we’ve been trying to spend as much…

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How To Make Wooden Stilts

For Christmas last year, my cousin and his wife gave the boys these awesome stilts that they made (they got the idea from Made by Joel). Not only are these tons of fun, they also work on balance and…

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Candy Campfire

These little campfires were so fun and SO EASY to make! I planned on having the kids at Big Brother’s birthday party make them, but then I forgot about them until the very end of the party…so we just made…

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Tree Branch Blocks

We have large trees in our yard…which is absolutely wonderful. However, we also live in an area where we gets lots of wind, which means that we often have branches and even large limbs scattered about in our yard….

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Mini Bow & Arrow Set (with free printables)

When I saw this idea for making a tiny bow and arrow set, I knew this would be a fun activity to do at Big Brother’s camping party! I adapted it slightly to fit our needs. These mini bows…

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Teaching your child to put on his/her own coat!

Putting on a coat is tricky for even a preschooler to do by him/herself. But this technique makes it a cinch! It’s been a while since I’ve included a self-help/adaptive activity in our thematic units, so I thought our snow…

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Beaded Snowflakes

Big Brother is a bit under the weather, so making this beaded snowflake was the perfect activity to do to take a break from all the TV watching! This is the fine motor activity for our snow thematic unit….

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