Click here to read 10 Ten-Minute Challenges for Preschoolers on Hands On As We Grow® Kate’s here today to create a challenge for you. Are you up for it? Or, more correctly, I should ask, are your kids up for it? This is a challenge directed to your kids to help in ‘those moments’ and I bet you’ll find yourself having fun doing the challenge with your kids too! Kate is the amazing mom and author behind Picklebums. Full of beautiful children (four!) and beautiful photography (not to mention full of activities with some parenting tips along the way), Picklebums is a must see, check out now b ..read more

Click here to read A Sample Weekly Plan of Crafts for Kids on Hands On As We Grow® Every weekend I try to make a plan of activities for the coming week to start on Monday. I start with the gauging what my child is interested in (using the “My Child This Week” sheet of the free weekly planner). I fill one out for each of my kids and what they’re into at the moment. I use this as my guide to plan our activities accordingly. With each of my kids’ interests, I brainstorm 7 activities to do that week. I jot them down on the simple ‘Activities To Do This Week’ planner. Below is a sample week of ..read more

Click here to read Simple Line Walking Activity for Toddlers and Preschoolers on Hands On As We Grow® Make walking on a line even more fun with these fun tweaks. Your toddler or preschooler will love these simple line walking activities! With two kids in special education and developmental therapies, Member of the Month Babi started searching. She was looking for hands-on ways to support her children at home. Enter The Activity Room! “My kids were in speech therapy, occupational therapy, and special ed,” explained Babi. “So I was always searching and looking for things to help them.” The ..read more

Click here to read Simple Block Learning Activity with Shapes & Colors on Hands On As We Grow® Super simple block learning activity for toddlers and preschoolers to practice their shapes and colors and then build! If your child loves blocks, I have tons of block activities for them to do! We did this long, long ago with George (see below) and this time, Louis got a turn. George played along too and did block patterns. Before inviting the kids to play, first collect some blocks that you have! If you have different colored blocks (here’s an affiliate link to ones very similar to what we have ..read more

Click here to read Pom Pom Target Practice for Preschoolers & Toddlers on Hands On As We Grow® Set up this simple target practice for preschoolers using pom poms! It’s easy and fun for preschoolers and even toddlers to aim fo! George asked for an activity to do with pom poms. He absolutely loves to blow the pom poms. Its just fun! I set up a little target on the floor using painters tape for him to aim for. Or try a target practice for kids outside – hope you don’t mind them getting a little dirty! I got these enormous pom poms in a package I received from CraftProjectIdeas.com (th ..read more

Click here to read 15 Toddler Learning Activities to Do at Home on Hands On As We Grow® Teaching your toddler at home is as easy as 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C! Learning activities for toddlers are super simple to DIY with these 15 easy activity ideas. Working with your toddler on “school” type work covers the basics. Like, the basic basics: colors, numbers, letters, and shapes. The focus should really be on play, and not on testing or desk work. Some basic math and literacy an older toddler will start to learn are: Differentiating colors Differentiating shapes Recognizing letters Recognizing nu ..read more

Click here to read How Many Ways Can You Catch the Ping Pong Ball? on Hands On As We Grow® We're challenging you to try this gross motor challenge with us! Try to catch the ping pong ball, from Lisa, three different ways! It has been a cool and rainy spring this year. I needed to keep my boys challenged and busy on days when we could not get outside. After looking in my craft supply closet, I pulled out our ping pong balls and plastic cups and set up three simple challenges for them! How Many Ways Can You Catch the Ping Pong Ball? The idea was simple: could they catch the ping pong ball into ..read more

Click here to read Try A Crazy Glue Craft That Will Blow Your Mind on Hands On As We Grow® I have a crazy and fun glue craft to share with you today. When I was an elementary school art teacher, my students were obsessed with school glue. They painted glue on their hands and “watched it dry.” Once the glue dried, they peeled it off their hands and colored it with markers. Quirky, right? Now that I’m a mom to seven and five-year-old, I realize kid inventions are pretty cool, and it’s fun to run with them. Crazy and Fun Glue Craft: Making glue blobs is fun and easy for kids of all ages. To get&n ..read more

Click here to read Triple the Name Tracing Fun on Hands On As We Grow® This is a name tracing activity that has preschoolers tracing their name three times for a fun way to learn their name. We just had parent/teacher conferences for both the older boys. I am very happy to report that both are doing very well in preschool and first grade. I have no complaints! One thing that George is surprising me with is the ability to write his name. He has most of the letters there (he sometimes forgets the ‘r’) but they’re not always in the right order. I’m just shocked by his ability to write t ..read more

Click here to read Favorite Color Activities for Preschoolers & Toddlers on Hands On As We Grow® Learning colors is one of the first things toddlers and preschoolers grasp. They will have a lot of fun with our favorite color activities for preschoolers shared below. I don’t know the technical, or developmental approach to learning colors, but I do know a lot of fun ways to foster learning colors for young children, like toddlers and preschoolers! We have done so many color activities! Favorite Color Activities for Preschoolers (& lots of ’em)! From color activities that help preschoole ..read more