​Learning games are a great way to teach your child a well-rounded set of skills and to lay a foundation for all the learning she will do in life. You'll find lots of examples and activities on our blog and website. Here we've collected some principles that will help your experience of playing learning games go smoothly.

Keep it fun and lighthearted. As soon as learning feels like work instead of play, your kids will resist.

Don't force anything. Invite, make it appealing, demonstrate how much fun the activity is, but don't make your child do something he isn't interested in. He may not be developmentally ready, or his development may be centered around a different skill this week. Appeal to his interests rather than what you think he ought to be doing.

​Hula hoops are great tools for developing physical skills, and they are lots of fun too! A preschooler probably won't be able to use a hula hoop for its intended use yet, but there is still a lot they can do with one. Here is a list of games and learning activities for hula hoop time.

Lay the hoop on the ground and use it as a target for a bean bag toss.

Put a series of hoops on the floor, and have your child follow directions to hop from hoop to hoop. They can jump with both feet, step, hop on one foot, etc.

​Does the idea of a car trip with small children fill you with dread? Road trips don't have to be torture. In fact, they can be an immersion learning opportunity for your kids. If you fill your time in the car with fun games and activities, you can expect your children's vocabulary and knowledge to grow exponentially in a short time while you cultivate fun memories and a strong relationship.

The real challenge of road trips is keeping kids entertained. Here are some ideas that will engage your kids and help them learn and grow at the same time.

Play rhyming games. Let the youngest child say a word and have everyone else say a word that rhymes. Try to come up with as many rhymes as possible. Read Piggle by Crosby Bonsall, and play "Piggle" by saying four words that rhyme, mixing up real words and nonsense words.

​Bubbles in a cup is a great summer activity for outside. It teaches concentration and attention span, strengthens the muscles of the mouth, provides a science lesson, teaches following directions, and is lots of fun!

Materials:

• Towel to soak up spills if inside
• Tray under the cup or bowl
• Flat-bottomed bowl or cup – one per child
• A little Liquid detergent for dishes in water
• Straw – one per child
• (for bubbles that float, add a little cooking oil)

Procedure:

​So often we think to let children feel textures with their hands, but we seldom think to let their feet experience new textures. Feeling textures with the feet is great for toddlers and preschool aged children. It stimulates the nerve endings in their feet as well as working on balance. And it is fun.

How Do We Play?

• Place several textures in a row on the floor. Examples: Soft spongy foam from packing or bubble wrap. The large bubbles make a loud bang when popped, so avoid those for toddlers and young pre-school aged children. It can frighten them and ruins the experience. You also could use a mesh bag that oranges come in, a terry cloth towel, clear cellophane that makes crinkly sounds when stepped on, fuzzy fabrics like velvet and fake fur, the bottom of a Styrofoam egg carton, or clean meat trays.
• Tape them down to avoid slips and falls.
• Have all ages walk barefooted on the textures. Some will walk on them over and over. Some will try it once. Some may be frightened. Don't force it.
• If the child doesn't like it at first, encourage them to feel the items with their hands. If possible, help them walk on at least one texture to see that it feels good. Introduce this experience again after about a week. They may love it. After an introduction to it, the second time seems more familiar.
• Don't use unpleasant textures. Sand paper and hot coals are not favorites. Remember, we want to build trust as well as balance. Experiment with different textures. You try walking on it barefoot, too. If the child sees you do it, he or she will know it is safe. It's fun. And it gives you a foot massage (which some people pay big bucks for).

Photo Credit: Adrian Dreßler cc

​Grocery shopping with preschoolers isn't easy. We get goal-oriented about shopping and feel frustrated that our kids are slowing us down. But grocery stores offer a wealth of stimuli for a child's brain, and shopping is a great opportunity to help your little one learn and grow. Below are some ways you can engage your child while getting your shopping done.

Name everything. Everything you buy, hold it up and name it. Let your child hold, feel, and smell items. This will help your child's vocabulary explode.

Work on colors. Once your child knows lots of nouns, you can begin to work on colors. Hold up a banana and say, "Yellow. Yellow banana." Do this with anything that has a clear color. Show your child something red, and then say, "Can you find anything red?" Let them name everything they can find that's red. Play "I Spy." Keep in mind that kids under 3 probably won't remember what they picked, so they may say no to everything you guess!

​The ability to write, once a child is old enough, largely depends on the finger and hand strength and the coordination he has developed in his early years. You would think this would happen naturally, but teachers and physical therapists are seeing more and more children whose hands and fingers are not up to the task. Even in third and fourth grade, teachers are sending home notes asking parents to please help their children to do tasks which develop finger strength.

Good news! There are many fun activities from infancy on that you can do with your child to prepare him for success in this important area of life.

Tummy Time

​"One of the best predictors of whether a child will function competently in school and go on to contribute actively in our increasingly literate society is the level to which the child progresses in reading and writing. Although reading and writing abilities continue to develop throughout the lifespan, the early childhood years—from birth through age eight—are the most important period for literacy development." -- The International Reading Association

As you can see from the above quote, writing skills are crucial for ensuring success in school and life. The good news is that activities that teach writing are things that kids love to do!

The first step to learning to write is strengthening finger and hand muscles. For ideas on how to do this, see this post.

​When my oldest daughter was 15 months old, her dad built a sandbox. I (Kirby) knew it was going to be perfect! I could hang clothes out to dry while my toddler blissfully discovered pouring and measuring and building and dumping. Montessori had come to my house!

I gathered up my basket of wet clothes, led my little girl over to the new sandbox, and headed for the clothesline. But she just stood there, staring at the sand and looking puzzled. Then it hit me—she didn't know how to play with sand. So I abandoned my laundry and we spent time making mountains together and filling up her dump truck, pouring water onto the sand, and digging holes. After that, she knew what to do, and she knew how much fun it could be.

It's not just kids who haven't learned how to play with sand. Lots of parents don't know what to do with a sandbox either. So here's a list of activities you can do with your pre-schooler in the sand. All of these games build cognitive and physical skills too.

Parents of preschoolers are tired people. Caring for little ones is exhausting work. We have the best intentions of providing enriching activities for our kids, but when exhaustion sets in, good intentions go out the window. To help you plan for those times when you need something your child can do while you are lying down or sitting, here's a list of 20 activities.

1. Finger paint in shaving cream spread on a cookie sheet.
2. Play with play dough.
3. Read. If you're reading a well-known book, try changing some of the words or sentences and let your child have fun catching your "mistakes."
4. Play Chutes and Ladders or Candyland.
5. Put on music and let your child dance. Try giving her a bean bag and challenge her to dance with the beanbag on her head, between her knees, or on her elbow.
6. Play "red light, green light."
7. Play a following directions game. Give your child silly things to do.
8. Put out two or three items on a plate, then cover them up and see if your child can remember what he saw. Let him do the same for you.
9. Throw a sheet over a card table to make a fort. Let your child take toys inside.
10. Put a little tub of water on the kitchen floor. Gather up a bunch of objects and let your child test if they sink or float.
11. String big beads on shoelaces.

Kids like moving their bodies! Here are three fun activities that build flexibility, balance, strength, and coordination.

Crab walk: Have children sit with their knees bent, feet flat on the floor in front of them, feet apart. Next show them how to place their hands down by their sides, but slightly behind their backs. Then, they can raise their hips off the floor. Now they can walk forward, backward, and sideways, pretending to be crabs.

1. Put pieces of masking tape (approximately the length of the child's foot) : one piece for hopping and two side-by-side pieces for jumping along a path. Wherever you put the two pieces, direct your child to "Jump!" and when they get to the single piece of tape remind them to "Hop."

This course can be as long or short as you like, indoor or outdoor, from the kitchen table to the bathroom to brush teeth after a meal, etc. This activity is growing muscles in your child's body, teaching the ability to balance (especially when hopping), and learning to follow directions is a benefit as well.

Find many creative ideas to get children leaping ahead in their physical development, all while done with things found at home. This is the time to take a minute to watch these and strengthen your options while stuck at home. Enjoy!