Reading

Are you looking for a new kind of chapter book series for young readers? Something that focuses on positive relationships and self-image rather than bullying? Something that portrays realistic characters in plausible adventures, exploring and creating their way through childhood?

Are you looking for a new kind of chapter book series for young readers? Something that focuses on positive relationships and self-image rather than bullying? Something that portrays realistic characters in plausible adventures, exploring and creating their way through childhood? Follow our progress on a new series! Read more…

number and letter recognition activities | a scavenger hunt to help preschoolers identify numbers in the world around them (rather than just on a worksheet)

Number and Letter Recognition Activities for Preschoolers My 2 year old has been learning his numbers and letters recently — a bit haphazardly, to be honest, but somehow he’s picking up the idea. Leapfrog’s DVDs Letter Factory and Numberland have been the most helpful instructional tool we’ve used for this. (You can read more about […] Read more…

Let Them Tell Stories – 5 Reasons to Encourage Storytelling

This is a conclusion to my series on helping our children and students learn to love Reading and Writing. This series has included the initial post (see link above), as well as an article about helping your kids (of all ages!) write creatively – for fun!, more ideas for easily working in some creative writing exercises […] Read more…

Storytelling Activities – Creative Writing with kids, part 3

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been working on a series on helping our children and students learn to love Reading and Writing. This has included the initial post as well an article about helping your kids (of all ages!) write creatively – for fun! and more ideas for easily working in some creative writing exercises […] Read more…

Storytelling prompts and templates with examples; includes 4 free printable story forms to help encourage young children develop creative thinking skills

Creative Writing with Kids, part 2

Storytelling with Kids – Make Writing Fun! This post contains affiliate links. You can read my full privacy policy here.  Last week, as part of my series on helping our children and students learn to love Reading and Writing, I wrote a post about helping your kids (of all ages!) write creatively – for fun! In […] Read more…

Cultivating a Love for Reading and Writing, part 2: Creative Writing with Kids This post contains affiliate links. You can read my full privacy policy here.  This post is a continuation of my series on helping our children and students learn to love Reading and Writing. In the first post, I mentioned a few ways […] Read more…

Curating a Literacy-Rich Home Environment Kids can learn so much when they are surrounded by interesting, creative, and informative things. These “things” can be books, toys, digital resources — or friends, grandparents, outdoor adventures … etc. When we curate* a resource-rich home environment for our kids, creating a space where they can comfortably live, play, […] Read more…

10 math story books for kids -- a list of living books that combine math and literature with a love for learning

10 excellent math stories for kids and a curated list of living books that combine math and literature

This is a round-up of our favorite math stories. I didn’t realize until recently that this was even a thing, but during a recent trip to our library I realized there was an entire section dedicated to math books — not the textbook kind, but beautifully illustrated, fiction and nonfiction story books for kids!  Read more…

A fun, creative, tongue-twister story written for preschoolers

Silly Stories for kids: the Zoo Train Parade

My 4 year old son and I sat down to brainstorm some more silly words (rhyming words or alliteration phrases or just plain silly sounds) and we (ok, mostly I) came up with this story. It’s fun to get him involved in the creative writing process so he can see how to get ideas flowing onto paper, then mash them all up and jumble them back together until they fall into place and you get a silly story. 🙂 That’s our official process at the moment.  Read more…