Elementary: 5-9 years

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…

 I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for the TB Blood Test. I received a promotional item to thank me for my participation. #TBBloodTest Are you a teacher or do you volunteer in your child’s school?  While regulations and requirements vary by school and state, if…

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…

With the move to our new, forever house, everyone in the family got exactly what they wanted… The girls got a great new playroom and a yard to play in.  I got the kitchen I’ve always wanted.  And hubby got his man cave.  He has been plotting his man cave…

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…

Things have slowed down around here as we continue to dig out of boxes from our big move, and as I enter the last month of my pregnancy and sheer exhaustion has set in!  But, we are still managing to do a few fun activities each week, continuing with our…

Big M is my little bunhead.  She began taking ballet at age 2 and has been tutu obsessed ever since!  I knew she would be beyond fascinated by the next artist in our Preschool Art series, as we studied the Degas Dancers.  Unlike many Impressionists who painted landscapes outdoors, Degas…

 I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Carter’s. I received a complimentary gift card to facilitate my review and thank me for my participation. One of my favorite things about the first day of school was always choosing the perfect, back-to-school outfit.  And turns out…

The girls and I are having so much fun with this Preschool Art series. I love the inspiration it is providing me in coming up with fun new activities, and I love all the support, feedback and excitement I am hearing from you all in response!  This week, we continued…

Last week, I kicked off our Art History for Preschool series.  I started by sharing a great list of books to help you and your preschooler get excited about art, and the great artists.  You will find many of our upcoming projects reference books from that list as our series…

Growing up, my grandparents had a print of the Matisse Goldfish hanging in their breakfast area.  The Goldfish and many other prints and reproductions they hung in their home were my first exposure to art as a child.  Thirty years later, having seen many great masterpieces in person in museums…

Today, we continue our Exploring Art History with Preschoolers series, sharing the first preschool reproduction using one of the masters’ techniques: Matisse Cutouts! Painting with Scissors – Exploring Matisse Cutouts This represents a number of firsts for us: the first Kids Activity in our Exploring Art History with Preschoolers series…

Big M is very artistically inclined.  She has great imagination and loves to create. And, as I’ve discovered, she loves learning about real world topics, beyond just the usual preschool nursery rhymes, ABCs and dinosaurs (though we do plenty of that as well!).  We recently decided to undertake an exploration…

There are few books from my childhood that I vividly remember… Miss Rumphius, the story of the Lupine Lady, is one of them.  Whether it is the beautiful illustrations or the inspiring message the story delivers, the award winning children’s classic is definitely one book from my childhood that has…

How many of you remember the award-winning, children’s classic Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney?  In this now famous story of the Lupine Lady, a young Alice promises her grandfather that she will do three things in life: go to faraway places, live beside the sea in her old age, and…

While pizza as we commonly know it may have first been invented in Naples, Italy in the late 18th century, it has become an American staple.  And with a strong base of Italian immigrants here in our home state, and family-run establishments dating back to the early 1900’s, New Haven-style…

This Spring, a group of my fellow kids activity bloggers and I worked together to bring you a Tour of the World by Flower, featuring flower crafts representative of our home states, provinces and countries from around the world.  We all had so much fun, this summer we’ve teamed together…

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…