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The toughest part of any preschool party is planning the entertainment!  If you are in charge of your preschooler’s parties this year, I’ve got you covered… with these Top 10 Valentine’s Day Party Games.  And don’t miss the over 200 Valentine’s Day ideas to go with them at the end…

Here on the Playground Parkbench, I share everything I would talk about with my fellow parents sitting on the parkbench as our kids play on the playground.  That mostly fits into the broad categories of Parenting and Kids Activities. As my kids have gotten older, where we talk may vary – the…

Have you been following our Nutcracker holiday mini-series? This marks the final post in our Plan the Perfect Nutcracker Party series with activities, decor, and favor ideas, paired with festive food contributions from Eats Amazing.  Today’s Jingle Bell Ribbon Sticks will have your tiny dancer party-goers dancing along like Sugar Plum…

What Nutcracker party is complete without tutus and dancing?!? Motivate your tiny dancer party-goers to dance with these festive DIY Party Favors… today, we are sharing the how-to for snowflake wands to go with the Waltz of the Snowflake. Wednesday I’ll be back with the how-to for the jingle bell…

The Nutcracker is more than just ballerinas and tutus!  The battle scene features the Nutcracker and his army of toy soldiers versus the Rat King and his minions.  Today, I’ve recreated this battle with a fun Nutcracker game on a cinnamon stick tic tac toe board! The Nutcracker Series Welcome…

People thought I was crazy when I took Big M, then age 3, to see The Nutcracker last holiday season.  She was captivated from the opening curtain to the final curtsies.  She still watches it almost daily, narrates the scenes, requests to listen to the soundtrack in the car, and re-enacts…

Along with the cheer of the holiday season comes the drear of colder and wetter weather, making for long dark days stuck indoors.  We cheered things up with some holiday games, including this fun Christmas twist on the traditional cup-and-ball favorite, Cup and Jingle Bell! Cup & Jingle Bell, A…

We have another great round-up of kids activities for you today on Instagram, courtesy of #KidBloggersofIG.  This week features 12 awesome Halloween activities, crafts, and snacks just in time for Halloween week!  The girls loved our contribution, and have played with it every afternoon for the last 4 days: Halloween…

Sometimes our projects are invented out of the need for distraction!  This weekend we made one of my favorite family outings – to the pumpkin patch.  And of course the girls immediately wanted to carve our pumpkins as soon as we got home.  To buy us another week before turning…

Do you have a farm set laying around that your kids don’t play with much anymore?  Breathe fresh life and inspire an afternoon or more worth of activity by adding the elements to a sensory bin!  With a newborn at home, I am on a quest for quick, easy and…

Looking for a little spooky, learning fun this Halloween?  The girls and I had lots of fun this week with this Spider Web Jumble.  It is a great fine motor skills challenge, and the simple set up makes for easy holiday STEM games for kids too. Spider Web Jumble Ever…

It’s Friday, and this week, We’re in Love with Leaves!  This is the second week of our weekly link-up party, It’s Friday, We’re In Love!  Each week, one of our 8 co-hosts will share featured ideas we LOVE from that week’s theme… and best of all, the link-ups will remain…

While Big M may look just like me, emotionally we are night and day.  Though she is little, not unlike other kids her age, she can be very emotional, highly sensitive, and it sometimes takes very little to set off big feelings. We recently discovered the book, The Pout-Pout Fish,…

I am super excited to be participating in Crafty Kids at Home’s A-Z of Pretend Play series.  All month long, a different blogger will feature a different letter of the alphabet with a pretend play activity.  Today, we are sharing F is for Storytelling Finger Puppets.  I am endlessly amazed…

At the beginning of the summer, my friend Clarissa at Munchkins and Moms shared this awesome Starry Night-Inspired Sensory Bin she made for her boys.  As soon as I started brainstorming for our Art History for Preschool series, I knew I wanted to do one of our own.  When researching…

A while back, I wrote about all the reasons moms make the worst drivers.  Top among them was my 3 year old, pint-sized backseat DJ.  Fast forward 6 months, and my backseat now has two miniature music aficionados, shouting out song requests and belting along with ballads.  Which has also…

I’m interrupting my usually scheduled Tuesday Tips to bring you a special math activity for preschoolers as part of the Cool Maths for Cool Kids month-long blog hop, hosted by Peakle Pie!  And no, that’s not a typo – Brits are fancy, and don’t say math.  For the last and…

TGIF, y’all!  Welcome to another edition of We Love Weekends!  If this is your first time joining us, welcome to Playground Parkbench – I’m Meghan, the Playground Parkbench Guru.  Mom to Big M (almost 4), Lil’ M (almost 2) and M3, coming this Fall.  I write aboutparenting tips, mommy sanity…

With two teachers for grandmas, the girls are frequent recipients of books.  The grandmas often think alike too, and this Spring, both gave Big M mermaid-themed books.  MerMer, our Texas grandma, gave her Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet when she came to visit for Spring Break.  Today, we are…