In dramatic play, dress-up play is role playing and storytelling that helps children develop ideas about how the world works in so many ways. It is a type of play that every child needs to experience as it has so many benefits! Environments® Toddler Animal Capes with Hoods #gifted from @discountschoolsupply are easy-to-wear dress up costumes where a child can roar like a lion, gallop like a horse, stomp like a dinosaur and sneak around like a fox! Dress-up play has profound positive effects on a child’s development. It fosters imagination, let’s a child explore themselves and the world around them, strengthens relationships, improves language/communication, builds empathy, fine/gross motor skills, life skills, and process feelings to help their social emotional development. A child’s imagination is one of their greatest tools in their development. Dress-up ignites their imagination to world full of wonder.

Growth all starts with a conversation. Whether you set an invitation to explore, create or play to honor Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.,they are meaningful ways to be the seeds you plant to work towards growing intentional conversations around a better community. The more we have those conversations, the more those seeds grow and establish their roots. When we expose children at a young age creatively the meaning about the power of words and the impact they make, the deeper the roots of the seeds you plant spread in all directions to lay strong foundation. As adults we have the gift of giving our children two gifts: 1)The Roots to Grow 2) The Power to Dream. Today we decided to honor MLK Jr. with a plant as a symbol of growth for our community. Check out stories today as I will repost, tag, and share inspiring ways from other amazing accounts to continue the impact MLK has on us up grow and dream.

Easel painting is as important as building, reading books, dramatic play, science or any other aspect of the foundations early childhood. They provide endless rich opportunities to learn in science, math, language, and visual arts. To set this invitation up simply provide a child with butcher paper , paint , and brushes on an easel . Typically our easel is inside with materials ( crayons, markers , chalk , paint) always ready to go. Today we decided to provide a different experience by placing the easel outside while playing classical music. Before diving into more of the benefits of easel painting a couple of tips to help with the mess: If painting indoors place a table cloth or mat on the ground to catch the paint. You can do this for outside to but I usually just hose it down with water. Provide children with apron to wear over clothes or a rain coat/boots. Place a bucket of soapy water and towel nearby for a quick clean up if a sink is no where near. Children who paint learn to think with an open mind, to look at situations creatively. Working on the vertical surface puts a whole new spin on the experience. They learn to express themselves more deeply through their art and their words. They develop critical-thinking skills and must make decisions about what works and what doesn’t on their own, how to mix colors to create new ones, or how to make certain movements to create designs. By learning to paint, children gain a skill which they can be proud of. It gives them a foundation to look at the world with the confidence they can accomplish a goal. Physically they are using the large and small muscles of the arm with easel painting. Simply moving the brush from the container to the paper requires focus and control which enhacnes fine motor skills. Large motor skills are used when the easel works the shoulder and entire arm of the body. All these movements enhance their hand-eye coordination as well. Continuous exposure to these movements through easel helps control their marks later on. Visual art deeply affects children, for it is one of the most important forms of communication. Painting at the easel has a fluidity that is different from other art media that children use because there is no right way in the arts. When children simply paint, they are proud to be unique and to express and honor their creative artistic style.

Freezing nature has always been one of my favorite invitations that I typically do in spring with all the flowers in bloom. When I saw @creative_exploration do it with foraged winter treasures I had to give it try. To set this up go on a nature walk, hike, or in your backyard, gather some wintry natural materials and freeze them. You can set this up in a sensory bin , baking tray, or outdoors. We decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and explore outside by setting the invitation on our Excellerations® Outdoor Sensory Mixing Table #gifted. When freezing materials the invitations are set for the child experiment how to excavate what’s inside the ice. Providing a child with kitchen utensils, magnifying glass #gifted, cups/ beakers , or droppers are great tools to release the materials from the ice. I also got inspired to bring out our beverage dispenser like @growwild.co did so that Cy could learn how to pour his own water into the beakers. There is so much science, water play, cognitive and fine motor development all packed into this invitation! A child is able to explore and finding a deeper connection with nature.

Slide Ranch is located on the Marin coast near Muir Beach. This is the perfect place to connect children to nature through exploring the coast on a hike and seeing their sweet animals. Children have a natural affinity towards nature, Slide Ranch’s environment provides a unique experience to have a child experience nature’s breath taking landscape and animals all in one place. Animals can provide great opportunities for not only enjoyment but learning. Most children are naturally drawn to animals; interactions with animals can teach children a range of important life lessons on responsibility, compassion, empathy, kindness, friendship, and patience. Nature provides countless opportunities for children to benefit from. From building stronger bodies to healthy immune systems, developing inquisitive processes to improve cognitvie functioning, children simply NEED the outdoors. Slide Ranch is open to the public from sunrise to sunset every day of the year. Please check out their website to respect and comply with their restrictions before visiting . To continue to support Slide Ranch‘s mission to immerse children in nature Donate Here.

ChristIan Robinson is hands down my all time favorite illustrator for children‘s books. In the book Little Penguins written by Cynthia Rylant which he illustrated, is wintry about five little Penguins on a snowy day. To extend the literacy experience created a small world invitation to explore, deepen the connection in many ways. Books related to the explorations are motivating and appealing to children. Even more information can be gained from these books in context of a story when they are able to see it come to life. To set this invitation, take a serving tray, baking tray, plastic storage box or sensory bin and place insta snow . Provide flat marbles, igloo structure and paint wooden dolls black. You can create some of the other images with cardboard. Small world play is simply when you set an invitation to explore where children use items to engage in scenes from their own experiences, environments, books, pictures, fairytales, or to expose them to new ones. Small worlds are great for many areas of development, including language, imaginary play, and sensory play. This type of play can be defined as where children accept and assign roles, and then act them out.

What is a geoboard? A flat board with pegs sticking out accompanied by bands. The goal is simply to wrap the bands around the pegs, and as a child masters the skill they can create shapes and patterns. This beautiful wooden geoboard is made by Grow Wild Co. It comes with 37 pegs, 20 colored bands, and cards to reproduce shapes onto the geoboard. The benefits of geoboards for the child are endless. This helps develop their fine-motor skills, more specifically develops their pincer grip. They enhance their recognition of shapes as well as the components of a shape (geometry) when they are trying to problem solve to reproduce the card onto the geoboard. This also strengthens their spatial skills. Stretch your child's mind by inviting them to experiment and explore with a geoboard. It is such an awesome manipulative that grows with a child throughout the years and amazing to see the progression of their skills develop in every stage. As with anything that can be a choking hazard, supervision is required. Also establishing safety rules is highly recommended.

After getting inspired by @katy.renfro year after year with her snowflake prints, I had to give it a try to integrate art with three of my all time favorite books. The three books are written by Shana Gozansky who curated a selection of fine art to explore Happiness, Sleep and Love . Not only are the books engaging, the words alongside the images within the book are powerful, touching, and relatable. The art work is diverse in many ways, as it explores many forms of art such abstract, impressionism, modern, and more. These are such great ways to expose children to the beauty and power of art at a young age. I can't wait for the fourth book about friendship to be released in may. To create this invitation to paint, you can cut out the images on wax paper or laminate images followed by taping it on the paper. Provide the child with tempera paint , dot markers ( we used scented ), or water colors and let them paint. Remove the cut out and ta-da! Integrating art to deepen the connection with the literacy experience is a great way to continue to the discussion of the book as well as giving the child the freedom to be creative. Love Happiness Sleep

Invitation to blow the snowballs through the maze is a great way to encourage children to practice the exercise of breathing. Blowing not only has calming effects on the body, it also helps develops muscles in the jaw and mouth. When a child learns how to blow it helps with their speech development as their mouth practices exercising to prepare for pronunciation. In regards to the calming effects on the body, the more a child knows how to blow/breathe from a young age it can provide for coping skills to calm themselves. Belly breathing is a calming exercise that children and adults can practice to relax and feel grounded. So whether your child is a toddler or older, an invitation like this is a great way to introduce them to being aware of their breathe through blowing the objects through play. To set this invitation all you need is play-dough , ping pong or play pit balls , pom poms , and a straw. You can mold the play-dough to create the maze on a table, ramp, tray, or floor. Place the ball or pom poms at the start of the maze and then encourage the child to use the straw to move the objects to the end of maze. The goal is to move the ping-pong ball through the maze by blowing it with a straw and no hands. Of course, the objects will roll out of bounds many, many times, but it isn't about aiming for perfection just concentrating on getting from point a to b while exercising their breathing.

After creating Julián Is a Mermaid with loose parts a while back, I knew it was time to do an invitation for Julián at the Wedding by Jessica Love. In this radiant story Julián goes to a wedding and during the wedding he has a new friend named Marisol. Sure enough they set off for an adventure and make some magic. This story of friendship explores individuality, imagination, identities, love, different family dynamics, and wonder. Helping children understand at a young age to treat others with respect and kindness can only be done so by exposure and providing opportunities to see differences. Guiding them with the concepts and vocabulary that enriches their understanding of a boy wanting to dress up as a girl, two women getting married, and so on. By answering their questions or asking them questions, building their vocabulary, and establishing acceptance, these will lay a foundation early on about all these different possibilities, to always keep an open mind and have a stronger social emotional connection for others. To set up this invitation you can draw/paint/print out the characters, laminate them, and the provide loose parts of leaves/moss and sticks. Read the story to your child and then invite your child to recreate the pages from the book. Integrating the story through another medium (art, loose parts, STEM, STEAM, etc.) to extend the experience strengthens literacy skills as well as fostering creative thinking. Books related to the concept explorations are motivating and appealing to children. Information can be gained from these books in context of a story. The pictures can impart a lot of meaning and information to help the children learn more about at topic, interact, relate their own experiences, and guide the children's inquiry.

We have to do better, as humans. Especially for our future, the children. It is up to each of us to do better. Keep reading those books, keep exposing them to culture, keep talking about feelings, keep teaching them about different perspectives, keep honoring their curiosity and wonder to create critical mindful thinkers, keep laying the foundation in the most formative years to keep DOING BETTER. In order for change to happen we have to do the work at home and in the classroom. Lay the foundation now so they can build better. We have a huge responsibility as adults...be the example you want for them in hopes that it carries on throughout their lifetime. Check out my previous post to live with intention by being a window for a child to see others, to appreciate others, to respect others, to love others, to be a mirror for others.

We have fully entered the stage of car, car, car, car, car alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll day long. From the moment he wakes up, the first word out of his mouth is CAR and to say my husband is excited is an understatement because he is a die hard car fanatic. With all the DMs about where everything is from here is a post dedicated to it all. As mentioned in the previous post about a child showing extreme interest in a subject matter building upon their curiosity honors their learning process and provides for a meaningful experience to guide a child's exploration in something they are interested in. From baby shower gifts, grandparents passing down family childhood cars, first birthday presents, and now Christmas, we have quite the collection. One tip for getting cars for a good deal is from Facebook Marketplace, Dollar Store, Second Hand Stores, or the Target Dollar Section. During winter break I looked up ways to store cars and found this DIY Car Garage Shelf that I asked my husband to make. You can also purchase it here on ETSY. Below I will link as much as I can underneath each image. Excellerations® Two-Sided Wooden Racing Tower Excellerations® Wooden Ramp STEM Discovery Set with Ramps, Textured Surfaces, and Cars Magnetic Car Loader 3-Tier Rolling Cart Excellerations® Premium Traffic Signs for Block Play Green Toys Dumper Construction Truck Green Toys Helicopter Way to play Original Toy Road Recyling Truck Floating Shelves Wooden Car Garage Shelf Mini Mile Activity Rug The Round Circular shelves I bought from Homegoods years ago. Here are similar ones. Cars can be found here. And lastly here is Cy in action!