Child-led learning, respectful parenting, Montessori philosophy, and nature-based explorations are all cornerstones of holistic education that nurtures the whole child. These approaches prioritize the child's autonomy, curiosity, and connection to the natural world, promoting a

Find here a free Ice cream Crochet Pattern! Make your own ice cream! Learn colors, and shapes and practice your motor skills!

Try these fun hand-clapping games and put your rhythm and coordination to the test!

Hey Everybody! It’s so fun to see over 100 followers! Wow, thank you. And thank you for all of your wonderful comments! Watch for a giveaway soon to celebrate! Things are getting busy around here. School just started and our little newborn is a month old! (she’s beautiful) Four kids are keeping me busy, busy Just a heads up … I don’t plan on making regular posts on the weekends anymore. I’m sure every now and then I’ll put something up, but for now, just look forward to more preschool ideas as often as I can during the week! We are having a ton of fun getting into preschool this year. I love the focus it gives our day and my kids love the undivided attention from mom. I thought it might be helpful to some of you if I posted our plan for September. So I put together a calendar of our weeks and days for this month, along with some of the activities I plan to do with the kids. I’ll do this for each month, so feel free to use it. Or download these CUTE free blank calendars from Anything But Perfect and fill in your own activities!

Take on this Patriotic Fireworks Foam Sensory Activity! You can have your fireworks fun but in a more controlled environment.

A child's imagination is indeed a very beautiful thing. I enjoy more than anything watching my son Ronnie play. He has an amazing imagination. I love it.

Explore the wisdom of Maria Montessori through her best quotes on educating children. Unlock the power of Montessori!

Harry Potter Themed Classroom 2012-2013 This is a view of my back wall. Each board is a different house color. Red - Gryffindor, Blue - Ravenclaw, Yellow - Hufflepuff, Green - Slytherin The shields were made by former students. Each sign is a quote from the Harry Potter Books. This is my teacher area. The bulletin board is Platform 9 3/4. The Reading signs cover each Reading Skill written in Harry Potter font. Reading Center - Pinterest idea for benches. Milk crates connected by tie straps with a cushion top. Student Work will be shown on the "Wand"erful Work board. 6 Traits +1 writing boards. Azkaban time out area. This is the table for my interventionist. Another View of the back wall. Computers on the window sill. SOAR is a lists for interventionist groups and is made like a Quidditch field. Decorated Shelves in Teacher Area. Postions, Hogwarts, Herbology, Honeydukes. Teacher Desk Area. Cookie sheets are spray painted. Red - Expectations, Blue - Schedule, Purple - I Do, We Do, You Do (TAP), Yellow - Whole Groups CHAMPS, Green - Stations CHAMPS Common Room Area, where students report each day for lunch cards, supplies, etc. Helper Chart on the Door "House Elves" Azkaban Wanted Posters decorate the cabinets. Hall Passes in the house colors! Will post more close up pictures in another blog post!

24 Awesome quotes about kids playing, imagination, pretending and more.

Laura @inspiremyplay Founder of @inspiremyplay, Early Years teacher for 11 years and mummy to three gorgeous girls. I'm passionate about about the benefits of play in early childhood. This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and go on to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Please read my disclosure policy for more details. Ocean themed activities seem to be a big hit in our house! I realised the other day just how many ocean and beach themed activities I've shared on Instagram over the past 18 months and thought it would be great to collate them all in one place to share with you. Many are sensory play based, with a few STEM activities and art & craft thrown in too. I hope you find some inspiration! Spaghetti Ocean We love a bit of spaghetti play! It's such a fun sensory experience and makes a brilliant ocean/seaweed base to play alongside ocean animals. To make coloured spaghetti cook it according to the packet instructions (or use leftover spaghetti). Add a few drops of food colouring and use tongs to toss the spaghetti in the food colouring. Once it has soaked for a few minutes, remove any excess food colouring by rinsing it under water. To make this ocean I divided the spaghetti into two and coloured one half green and one half blue. Ocean & Beach Clean-up Explore the problem of ocean pollution with kids in a hands-on way! I allowed the girls to have fun playing with a lovely clean beach before I sent them away for a few minutes and added the rubbish. They were shocked and saddened by the mess! It was a really powerful way to highlight the issue. The girls then used their fine motor tools to remove the rubbish and restore the beach. Sticky Fish We love the possibilities of sticky back plastic (otherwise known as contact paper)! For this activity cut out a fish shape from cardboard and add a piece of sticky back plastic to the back so that the sticky side is facing upwards. Draw lines over the fish and provide pom-poms or other craft materials to decorate. This activity is great for fine motor skills and can be used many times over as the pom-poms come off easily and can be re-stuck. Jelly Ocean Jelly is a great sensory play option for little ones who are still mouthing. I found this blue jelly in the supermarket, but if you can't find some you could use a packet of gelatine with some blue food colouring. Add the sea creatures before leaving the jelly to set. Then provide spoons and other tools so that the kids can enjoy digging them out and 'rescuing them' from the jelly. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Laura | Inspire My Play ® (@inspiremyplay) Under the Sea Salt Painting We love salt painting! It is such a fun and effective art technique that just uses salt, glue and watercolours. You can learn about the whole process on this Instagram post. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Laura | Inspire My Play ® (@inspiremyplay) Shaving Foam Ocean I made this Arctic Ocean using shaving foam with a few drops of food colouring swirled in. To make the ice I used freezer frost! But if you're better than me at keeping your freezer in check you could use blocks of ice frozen in packaging or bits of polystyrene. Layers of the Ocean This liquid density activity is a brilliant way of exploring the layers or 'zones' of the ocean and uses everyday liquids that you should be able to find at home. Find out all the details on this Instagram post. Rock Pool Play Tray We may not be able to go to the beach at the moment but you can bring the beach to the kids by creating your very own rock pool! Set it up in a large tray or tub so they can get their feet in and get the whole experience! Salt Water Habitat Sort Explore where different sealife come from with this mini habitat sort. I chose a coral reef, open ocean, rockpool, polar ocean and mangrove for my habitats. The girls sorted the sealife into the right habitat and we discussed a few that you might find in different places. Then they had a lovely time playing with the small worlds afterwards. Frozen Aquarium The girls loved rescuing the sealife out of our frozen aquarium on a hot day last summer. I gave them bottles of warm water and tools to chip away at the ice. Find all the details about how I froze it in layers on this Instagram post. Bubble Foam Ocean We love bubble Foam! It's a great enhancement to water play and quick to set up. To make bubble foam put 1 part tear free bubble bath (or washing up liquid) to 2 parts water into a bowl. We usually do 1/2 cup of bubble bath and 1 cup of water at a time. If you'd like to colour your bubble foam add a little food colouring at this stage. Mix it up using an electric hand mixer until you start to get stiff peaks and then scoop it out into a tray for play. We usually make 3 or 4 batches of different colours to fill a tray. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Laura | Inspire My Play ® (@inspiremyplay) Get your FREE ebook For more simple DIY recipes & ideas for sensory play at home download your Beginner's Guide to Sensory Play by subscribing to Inspire My Play today. Get Yours Now Fizzy Ocean Have you tried mixing bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) with vinegar before? It makes an exciting fizzy reaction that little ones just love! To make a fizzy ocean lay out a thin layer of bicarbonate of soda onto a tray and add in some sealife figures and shells. Then fill a couple of dishes with white vinegar and add a few drops of colouring to make one blue and one green-blue. Provide pipettes or droppers for children to transfer the vinegar to the play tray. As they squeeze it into the tray it will react with the bicarbonate of soda and create a fantastic fizzy, foamy ocean. Once the girls had finished creating their ocean I then provided them with a bowl of water and they had fun cleaning up the animals. Sand Play Dough This may be slightly off the ocean theme but sand play dough is great stuff and I had to share it! Sand play dough has a really unique texture to it and perfect for at-home beach play. Add some shells and loose parts for them to make their own pictures in the dough. You can find my sand play dough recipe on this blog post. For more beach and ocean themed activities do check out my pinterest topic board here. You can find a full list of our favourite play & craft supplies on my Amazon storefronts. Amazon UK Supplies Amazon US Supplies

💕🌈 This listing is for one 11 inch natural round COME IN - Letters are cut out And play! - Letters are engraved in the wood COME IN is a rainbow with blue before green (we know this and love it this way) Custom colors for come in are avail!! Leave your color choice in the notes to seller section upon ordering. This round does not come with hanging hardware

When you are first learning to sew, it's a good idea to play around on your machine without thread. This will help you get the feel of the machine without worrying about thread jamming and bobbin winding. I've posted some free worksheets in my Craftsy Pattern Shop to help you with this. The first sheet is simply straight lines - the goal of this is for you to work on ...you guessed it...sewing straight! Line the RIGHT edge of the foot up on the edge of the line and WATCH THE EDGE OF THE FOOT and NOT THE NEEDLE! The second worksheets will help you work on speed control; they are squiggles. Line the right side of the foot up on the edge of the squiggle. SLOWLY sew next to the squiggle. It's not easy and you may not be able to do it. The point isn't to sew perfectly. The point is to learn how to control your speed with your foot or the speed control on your machine. The third set of worksheets are connect the dots. These don't make anything...one day I'll fix it and you make a spool of thread or something. But for the time being, all you need to do is start at "1" and sew to "2" - then end with your needle down, lift your foot, pivot (with needle down), drop your foot, sew to "3", lift your foot, pivot to "4", drop your foot and sew to "4." This is all about getting used to ending with your needle down, lifting your foot, putting your foot back down, etc. Have fun with these. It's a great way to get comfortable with your machine. Download all my free tutorials, including these practice sheets!

It's a while since I have made one of these punched collages. I don't know why make them more often. They are a lovely gift. This has been given to a colleague on the arrival of a precious baby daughter. I bought the frame from Tesco and gave it a wash with watered down white acrylic paint.This enables the grain of the wood to show through. It can't be any frame - there has to be a gap between the glass and the base for the punched pieces to sit without being squashed flat. I keep a ridiculous amount of paper offcuts in the hope that I will find a use for them. All of these elephants have been cut from my stash. I (strangely) enjoy all of the measuring, positioning and repositioning that has to happen to produce the finished result. Resources: Punch - Martha Stewart Acrylic Paint Picture frame

I swear to you, Sarah is the only girl in the entire world who can deck her house in all out pink girliness and still manage to make it look totally elegant and lovely. Her home is absolutely amaz...

Are you looking for a fun and easy way to make personalized Christmas gifts? These handprint and footprint canvases are perfect! They're simple to make

This is a simple and easy homemade playdough without cream of tartar. I made this in under 10 minutes. Toddler loves it because of its smooth texture