It can be quite overwhelming walking into the toy department today.  There are so many toys from which to choose. How do you know which ones will be played with over and over again and which ones will languish at the bottom of the toy box?  And with Michigan’s still sluggish economy, no one wants to waste money.

Luckily I found some toys that have been around for over fifty years and are still as popular with kids of today as they were  fifty years ago.  You may even have fond memories of playing with some of them yourself.  I know I do!

 Is there anyone who hasn’t played Candy Land?  I spent hours playing it as a child and more time playing with my own children and my preschool kids.  Some other games that have been around awhile are Chutes and Ladders, Shoot the Moon, Sorry!,  Monopoly, Scrabble, Cootie Spill and Spell, Yahtzee.

 My brothers used to spend hours with the Jon Gnagy Art Studio and wood burning kits, still popular today.  Lincoln Logs are still popular and a creative outlet for that budding architect.  Legos will never go out of style!

Some other toys that are still popular after fifty years are:  Silly Putty, toy 17 key accordion, slinky, Pogo sticks, Duncan yo-yo, play-dough, viewmaster, jack-in-the-box, Corn Popper by Fisher-Price, Eloise Doll by Madam  Alexander, Tickle Bee, ant farms, wooly willy, hula hoop and wiffle ball.

If you notice there still-popular-after fifty-years toys do not require batteries, just an active imagination, a hallmark of a good toy.  So next time you go to the toy store, think about some of these toys.  Chances are they will not sit on the shelf unused.

Choosing Appropriate Toys for your Preschool Classroom

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The importance of early childhood arts education has received increased attention in recent years. Although this is good news, the majority of funding is directed to grades K-12, with preschools being largely left out.

To offset the potential lack of arts and crafts education at your child’s preschool; you can incorporate art into your daily routine at home. Keep a variety of inexpensive art materials available. Crayons, finger paint, paint brushes and a variety of paper is an inexpensive way to start.

Many household items, such as string, sponges, coffee filters and food items can also be incorporated into art activities. Art in early childhood education programs is an essential building block of development and bridges learning with other subject areas.

The first and easiest step to remember is: be creative! Spontaneous creative play, is what young children naturally do-singing, dancing, drawing, and role-playing. Studies have shown that the arts engage all the senses. When caregivers engage and encourage children in arts activities on a regular basis from early in life, they are laying the foundation for, and even helping wire children’s brains for successful learning. When you allow your child to express themselves creatively they will achieve a sense of accomplishment.

An example of an educational preschool easy craft is making a pipe cleaner bird feeder.
Pipe Cleaner Bird Feeder

Stringing the cereal onto the pipe cleaners allows young children to practice their fine motor skills.
What you need:

Pipe cleaner
Cheerios (or similar)

Directions: Make a loop at one end of the pipe cleaner. Thread cereal on to the pipe cleaner. Leave enough space to make another loop. Hang the feeder anywhere outside.

Parents should not feel that they are not creative enough to make crafts. There are many types of crafts to make and there is something for help get the creative juices flowing, visit . Our projects are easy, educational and fun! Preschool Easy Crafts is your all-in-one stop for preschool crafts, recipes, printables and supplies.

Ever wonder how to interact while learning with your kids? How to enjoy those sponge-like preschool brains, we do a weekly learning theme with short activities each day. It is so easy to get stuck in the rut of telling our kids to go outside or go play with their trucks. We are striving to do an activity with them each day. Come join us! This is our list of preschool activities we came up with to learn about the earth:

1) Go on a nature hike and identify non-living things, living things and signs of life (ex: dirt, ants and an ant hill or water, leaves and broken twig, etc.)
2) Get a bag of topsoil and bury items in it.
3) Find rocks… paint rocks. Add squiggly eyes and some hair and you can make paperweight creatures.
4) Do a soil analysis. Find out how much sand, pebbles, clay, silt and soil is in your “dirt”.
5) Bury food for a week in your yard. Dig it up and see what happened to it.
6) Make garden stones out of plaster/concrete.
7) Sculpt a cup or box out of clay.
8) Make dirt pudding. Have fun burying candy bugs into the dirt.
9) Make “Dirty” play dough. Brown play dough with glitter specks (rock) in it – my kids loved it!
10) Pick-up garbage in a park, along a quiet street or on a trail.
11) Make a terrarium (mini-world in a bottle).
12) Make Dirt-art. Use card stock and draw an image with glue (we did the letter D) and pour dirt over the picture to make the “d.”

Baby schedule template is a need of every childcare centre. In these templates, all activates of baby is listed. If you are many infants in your daycare then this is very useful tool. Besides this, there are two ways to maintain baby schedule template i.e. virtually or on paper. Virtually you can manage it on excel or through any software while paper templates involve written work. But the purpose of both type of templates is to feed information regarding future task. Besides this, there are many benefits of templates and they are listed below:

• Save time

When you run a daycare centre then time matters a lot. You have to give more time to children than any other work and thus there is very less time remained for other works. So, templates make your work easy as you have to schedule and feed task in it and with the help of this template you will not forget a single task. But make sure while preparing a template, you will include all the essential columns in it.

• Parents know about their babies activities

Through baby schedule task, parents will able to know about their kid’s task. You should send the copy of baby schedule template to their parents so that they will be able to know that their babies are in right hands. Also, it build up a good image of your in their eyes as you share and disclose your work in front of them.

• Bring efficiency in your work

When you are among children’s then it is very hard for you to remember each and everything about them. With these templates, you will be able to remember each and everything plus know the exact time to perform tasks. Also, scheduling leads to no confusion and your each staff member will know their work as they don’t need to discuss with someone else. Templates scheduling make everything clear and confusion free.

• You can maintain records

Well, this is the main benefits of templates as you can have a record of your activities. This is important as through it you will know about the previously preformed activities. Plus through it you will be able to know the progress of children.

Besides this, it is always advisable that you should go for virtual templates as paperwork is time consuming plus it is hard to find records. Either use excels for it or any scheduling software.

According to the National Fire Date Center, each year it is estimated that 2,800 children age 14 and under are injured and about 850 are killed in this country due to residential fires. Those are sobering statistics and a very good reason to help children become aware of fire safety. This is especially important in cool climes where wood is often a supplemental heat source.

When teaching kids about fire safety it is important to tell them why fire is dangerous and what to do if a fire takes place. Little children may not comprehend the seriousness of a fire emergency. So it is of utmost importance that adults act as role models to instruct them that fire is a tool, not a toy. It is important that children be taught that matches and lighters are not toys and should only be handled by adults.

Another important aspect of teaching children about fire safety is to instruct them what to do in case of fire. Plan an escape route out of your home, daycare or preschool. Decide on a designated meeting place. Have regular fire drills so kids can practice what to do. Teach children how to call 911 in case of an emergency.Practice, practice, practice stop, drop and roll in case clothing catches on fire.

A visit to a local fire department and talking to firefighters is another good educational tool in keeping children safe. If you cannot make a trip to the fire department, have a local firefighter some to your preschool or daycare. The firefighters can explain what kind of equipment they use and help underscore the importance of fire safety. Keeping our children safe is a priority. We do not want them to become part of some grim statistic.

References:


https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/children.html

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Parents, Grandparents and anyone who works with, or is around, young children realize just how extraordinary they can be. Here are a few quotes from some prominent people about young children. Some are uplifting, some are funny, but they all ring true!

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
― Albert Einstein

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
― Margaret Mead

“A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”
― Carl Sandburg

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”
― Anna Quindlen

“Children see magic because they look for it.”
― Christopher Moore

“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway… let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.”
― C. JoyBell

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”
― Emilie Buchwald

“Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”
― Roald Dahl

“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me. ”
― Fred Rogers

“Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.”
― Garrison Keillor

Children are our hope for the future. Taking care of their needs and facilitating their learning will benefit all of us.

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Hovering gracefully, bobbing up and down–blowing bubbles is a simple, inexpensive, and very enjoyable activity. It is mesmerizing to watch bubbles as they float through the air. It is fun to try and “catch” them. And it is fun to pop them when they land. Blowing bubbles can be done anywhere; at home in the backyard or on the beach or on a playground.

Making bubble liquid is easy and economical It can provide a lot of good, clean fun for young children (pun intended) and for adults, too!

Basic bubbles: 1 cup of dishwashing liquid (Joy or Dawn are recommended), 2 tablespoons light corn syrup. You will need measuring cups, measuring spoons, a container of jar with lid, stirrer. Mix ingredients together in a container. Ready to blow!

Fancier bubbles: 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons dishwashing liquid (Joy or Dawn recommended), 1 tablespoon glycerin, 1 teaspoon sugar. You will need a measuring cup, measuring spoons, container or jar with a lid, stirrer. Combine ingredients. Mix them well, until sugar dissolves. Blow away!

Bigger bubbles: 6 cups distilled water, 3/4 cup light corn syrup, 2 cups of dishwashing liquid (Joy or Dawn recommended). You will need measuring cups, container or jar with lid, stirrer. Combine the ingredients and mix well. Let mixture sit 4 hours before using. There she blows!

Have fun with this simple activity. Just make sure your child does not get the mixture too close to his or her mouth since it doesn’t taste very good. Enjoy watching those bubbles float high into the sky.

Source: https://blog.himama.com