imaginative play

I received complimentary product for my review from Crayola featured in this post. The content and opinions expressed here remain 100% my own. Engineering for kids is a fascinating area of study because it feeds their natural curiosity.  Taking things apart, wanting to understand how things work, and a desire to bring their imagination and…

A fast favorite from our collection of Architecture and Engineering Books for Kids was Roberto, The Insect Architect.  The girls made me read it every night for two weeks, taking turns over who got to take it to sleep with them at night… and it wasn’t long before they asked if…

It all started in the dance class waiting room.  One of the mom’s was complaining about about the Disney Collector video’s on YouTube that her daughter had become infatuated with.  I had no idea what she was talking about – she showed me, Lil’ M (age 2) caught one glimpse and was…

Any Daniel Tiger fans out there?  My girls are and one of their favorite episodes, which they often quote in real life, is when Daniel and friends build “the tallest tower in the world!” This week’s Architecture and Engineering series activity invites them to build a tower and do just…

Confession.  Children’s books can be a bit tiresome, especially when your preschooler wants to read the same one for the 100th time.  Therefore, I really appreciate clever ones, like The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale which put an intelligent twist on classic children’s literature.  It portrays the architectural greats – Frank Lloyd Wright,…

After the mudroom, my next favorite room in our new house is the playroom!  Getting the toys out of our family room was huge. Having a place for all the kids’ stuff AND in sight line of the main living space was a double win. But a playroom can also…

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…

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…

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…

Happy Friday, y’all!  Welcome to Playground Parkbench, and this week’s installment of We Love Weekends.  If you’ve never been here before, I’m Meghan, the Playground Parkbench Guru – SAHM to two girls, Big M and Lil’ M, almost 4 and almost 2, and 7 months pregnant with M3, our first…

Nothing says summer like July 4th and red, white & blue! The girls and I have been in the patriotic spirit this week, first making festive stained glass decor, and then, at Big M’s request, tiaras, or as I prefer to call them, Liberty Crowns!  We made some jeweled tiaras…

 I received a complimentary Encourage Play box to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are 100% my own. As you may have guessed from our post on the Importance of Play yesterday, I am passionate about play for my girls, both free play, as well as organized projects.  I also…

Last week we had beautiful, perfect pre-summer weather: blue clear skies, sun for days, and that temperature that is warm enough for water play, but not so hot you are melting.  I promised the girls a pool day in the backyard, and of course, that morning, Lil’ M woke up…

Happy Friday… and welcome to We Love Weekends!  A place where our favorite bloggers from around the globe link up their best family-friendly content to inspire you and your family to have fun together and love your weekend. Last Weekend Last Saturday had been highlighted on our calendar for a…

Last week, I got rear-ended enroute to preschool drop-off at a red light.  It’s been a fun-filled two weeks since of replacing car seats, getting the damage appraised and now repaired.  But what do they say – when life gives you lemons, make lemonade?  The car seat replacement left us…

Fancy New Years Crafts for Kids As many of you may have noticed from our photos, Big M pretty much lives in Orange Tutu and Snowflake Crown (she refers to them as though they are people, hence the capitalization!).  As long as we are at home and she is awake,…