Art is amazing for kids in countless ways.  It allows them to be creative, express themselves emotionally, and develop in many other ways.  One of the great benefits of many art projects is that they can also help children in many academic ways - but don't tell them!  

You know you want your kids to be smart, and you want your kids to like learning, but you are not sure how to achieve this?  Well, luckily for us, there are people out there studying just this sort of thing!  And they have good answers for us.

Did you know that make believe play and time spent running around a playground actually correlates to academic achievement?  Seriously.  Scientists have done studies on this and have found that not only does play time help the brain develop, but it also makes the brain more ready to learn new material.  That should make you feel good to know that all those hours spent going to the park were actually making your kids smarter!

Simple activities like fingerpainting and playing with shaving cream have been popular with many young children for as long as most of us can remember.  Some people may feel like these activities are "just for fun" or to keep little ones busy.  

However, these types of sensory development activities are much more important than just keeping little ones out of trouble.  These tasks actually help little ones' brains develop in ways that can help with future academic success.  So, bring out those messy activities often!

The week of all things green and gold is finally here!  I promise if we catch a leprechaun over here I will share some of the pot of gold with everyone.

​But until then...here are some ways you can make the day fun for your kids and maybe you can catch one, too!  For those of you with kids in our preschool classes, this is mostly what we will be doing - but you can still do similar things at home, too!

Hi!  This is the third post in my handwriting made easy series.  I hope you have been learning and enjoying from the posts so far!  Little kids have so very many days of school head of them, so I think it is super important to keep the idea of learning as fun as possible while also setting up a great foundation for future success.

Up until now, I have only discussed activities that can help make those little fingers stronger and encourage the correct pincher grasp.  Today I would like to share some of my favorite ways to encourage fun, correct letter formation.

Of course, eventually little ones will need to make letters with a pencil and paper (and I will also share some great techniques for that, too), but let's first start with other letter formation methods to really teach the shapes and get kids thinking about lines.

​One of the most fun ways is...

In my first post about how you can make handwriting easier, I shared with you some simple activities to strengthen up those cute little fingers so a child will be able to successfully approach writing.  Before I move on to explain forming letters with ease, there is one more activity I highly recommend for little hands....

All kids need to eventually learn to write, but not all kids are naturally good at it!  That's ok - there are plenty of activities to help with this.  I am so glad you can join me for Part 1 of this series.  Be sure to sign up with your email so you don't miss the rest...

Before you even show your child a worksheet or a pencil, there are some wonderful, simple, activities you can do to set them up for success.

The main goal of most of these activities is to work on hand strength.  Without strong hands, handwriting will just be torture for everyone - so it's so very important to not skip this step!

One of the best (and simplest) hand strengthening activities that is kid and teacher approved is:

Learning letter sounds is the first step to being able to read.  Keeping it fun makes kids want to keep doing it!

In our preschool, we have great success with teaching letter sounds to kids by keeping it fun and making it like a game.  Zoo-Phonics makes it simple because they have created letter cards with animals in the shape of the letters.

However, any letter cards will do.  The most important part of the program is getting the kids to move while they make the sound.  I am excited to share with our preschool families, and anyone else who wants to make learning letters fun, the motions we use in our preschool.

Follow this link to watch it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4skoTANMbM

And keep following us for the games we use for each letter!  Each day we learn a new letter, we have a fun little game to help the kids learn the sound.  Follow us on Facebook, or sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss out on more fun as we publish it.  Learning can be fun!