Reading stories have always been a point of inspiration to spark more playfulness in our invitations. Books can be a jumping point and path to create more intentional experiences such as art, sensory play, science,dramatic play, math, and small world play. By creating a #tufftray that makes the book come to life is quite possibly one of the best ways to extend the literacy experience while building comprehension skills, and creating life long lovers of reading!  One of the best ways children learn is to build on their curiosity and interests. Reading stories with related concepts or themes that they are enticed knowing more about can be particularly beneficial for their knowledge building. When you share books about a topic of interest, you open up opportunities to ask children questions, for children to ask questions, and to explore context and ideas.  Then when you pair hands-on experiences with the books, kids have the opportunity to make richer connections between the story,  their environment, extend or expand on ideas, build comprehension and language skills, retain the information and knowledge,  learn something new, and increase their understanding of the world around them. Activities and experiences such as this can help kids process and solidify their new knowledge while giving them an opportunity to try out new vocabulary and concepts. They can then apply those new words, information, and ideas to other situations to help themselves figure things out and to convey their own ideas all through the power of play!

The Little Blue Truck series are always an all time favorite for so many children, especially the Christmas This invitation recreates the book Little Blue Truck's Christmas through small world play. For this invitation you will need a sensory tray , insta snow , blue truck , bottle brush trees , farm

Halloween is the perfect time to bring a little spooky magic into the art experience! portraits using paper frames, ghost cutouts, googly eyes , stickers, washi tape, scrapbook paper, scissors, glue

stories, characters, and more come to life through imaginative play, sensory exploration, STEM & a little brings together favorite seasonal stories, playful characters & open-ended experiences to inspire a little Halloween Monster Jam 2, Little Blue Truck's Halloween I-Spy Halloween Tuff Tray Invitation to Create

The book  Don't Worry, Little Crab by   Chris Haughton   (Author, Illustrator) is about a Little Crab

Last week our dreams came true seeing Disney's live action Little Mermaid movie in the theatre. My older son was begging to create a small world play of the Little Mermaid, so naturally my inner child Childhood can quite possibly be some of the most magical years with such wondrous films like the Little

Blue: The Many Ways I Feel (The Colors of My Life) by  Nancy Johnson James   (Author),  Constance Moore   (Illustrator) is a book about an emotional ode to the color blue—and the blues—from writer Nancy Johnson In the story a child  describes all the beautiful shades of blue they feel while discovering that one has the power to change one’s many blues. Today after reading the story we invited the children to create with the many shades of blue.

The past couple of years we did similar invitations such as: Five Little Pumpkins STEM with Natural Wooden Blocks , Five Little Pumpkins STEM Invitation with Jumbo Interlocking Blocks . You can read or sing the story Five Little Pumpkins followed by inviting the children to create a gate Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate, First one said "Oh my, it's getting late!" Ooo ooo went the wind, and out went the lights, And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

celebrated the Lunar New Year by eating some of the traditional foods as well as reading the story Ten Little Their parents call the boys their ten little dumplings since they are both are auspicious.

Ma Rainey, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin are just a few female Black Blues reading books about the artist, listening to their music, and we invited the children to paint the 'blues Blues music gets its name from its original association with melancholy subjects and sounds and the ' blue notes" used, so we decided to provide blue, white, and black tempera paint as the colors to create sound, maneuvering their fine and large motor skills as they paint all over, and exploring the cool blue

Not only are Ten Little shoes healthy for children’s feet, they are so easy to put on and take off. This is why when it is time to pick shoes for your little ones getting healthy shoes for your child’s

Reading the book A Big Mooncake for Little Star is a great way to invite children to learn about the The story is about a girl Little Star gradually eating the mooncake that her mother has baked. Provide paper , tempera paint , glue , and glitter .