What are Fine Motor Skills? Fine motor skills have to do with using the hands to do tasks.  A baby has a whole-hand grasping reflex at birth but can’t flex individual fingers until about six months.   When a baby starts picking up peas with her thumb and forefinger, she has just made a giant [...]

When Do Babies Start to Crawl? It is important that babies and young children do a lot of crawling, specifically “cross-crawling” where they move opposite arms and legs—left arm and right leg forward, then right arm and left leg.  Most babies start getting mobile at around 6 to 10 months of age.  Not all babies [...]

What are Open-Ended Toys? According to Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute and the University of Washington, open-ended toys are those “that have the potential to be different every time [children] play with them.”  In other words, open-ended toys get children’s creative juices flowing. Fixed toys, on the other [...]

Fun in the Kitchen! You’re in the kitchen baking with the kids and it’s been great fun.  You’ve measured, stirred, rolled, cut. The cookies are in the oven.  Frosting and sprinkles are ready to top those treats.  Looking around the kitchen you see the result of the heavenly aroma wafting through the house.  The kitchen is [...]

“Shhhh…. Listen and keep your eyes open to look for the Leprechaun.” I whisper as we creep through our preschool.  The excitement of the children increases as we follow the green footprints!  The footprints soon lead us to the end of the rainbow where we find a large pot filled with little bags of Lucky [...]

obviously the # 1 advantage of rhymes is – rhyming!  * Hickory, Dickory, Dock ~ time, opposites/position words (up/down) * Jack Be Nimble ~ position words (over); Letter J * Little Boy Blue ~ position words (under); Color: blue; Farm * Humpty Dumpty ~ opposites/position words (on/off); (eggs); Letters H, D, E; * Jack and [...]