Celebrate reading and Dr. Seuss’ birthday March 2 with Target and the National Education Association for Read Across America Day. On Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012 from 9 to 11 a.m. Target is partying early for Read Across America Day. Visit Target Saturday morning and you’ll receive a reusable Target bag filled with activities for children,... [read more ]

How was your week!? Mine was a whirlwind of freelance assignments and new projects. It’s exciting to reach a tipping point. In fact, many of you have written to ask me how I transitioned from teacher to writer so I will blog about that soon.  Hope you find these articles useful — enjoy the weekend! Won’t someone come out and play? (my... [read more ]

I’ve been stockpiling books to review, apparently the pile has gotten so far ahead of me that I can’t get all the great books into one post. (Or the post would be a novel.) So, for now, I’ve picked my favorites of my favorite picture books to share and will get to the others soon. A Few Blocks by Cybele Young Older sister, Viola,... [read more ]

guest post by Patty O’Brien Novak, children’s author, engineer, educational consultant/trainer and speaker. With Sesame Street’s recent change in focus to add more engineering to their programming (yeah!), I want to share an engineering activity you can do at home with your preschooler (and older children, too.)  Envelope engineering was inspired... [read more ]

How was your week? Are you ready for some good weekend reading? But first, my new favorite bumper sticker — I found it at a bookstore this week. Asperger’s is Over-Diagnosed? You Try Getting Your Kid Evaluated by Joslyn Gray / Babble Have you read the news that Asperger’s is most likely going to no longer be a diagnosis for kids? “My... [read more ]

I’m blogging over at Parenting.com for Class Notes in addition to my blogging here at Imagination Soup and my other freelance work. If you want to keep up with my blog posts at Parenting, you’ll need to subscribe to the RSS feed. I realize that over the over 1,000 of you that subscribe in RSS already know what I’m talking about... [read more ]

Knock, knock! Who’s there? Peas! Peas who? Peas read a new Valentine’s Day picture book. (. . . yeah, I probably need to skip the joke writing . . .) New Valentine’s Day Picture Books: Mr. Prickles A Quill-Fated Love Story by Kara LaReau, illustrated by Scott Magoon Mr. Prickles and Mrs. Pointypants learn a valuable lesson about... [read more ]

Rachelle at TinkerLab, challenged bloggers to be creative with paper bags. Of course, I wanted to take a literacy angle and made a paper bag book that you can easily make, too. I found inspiration from That Artist Woman. DIY Paper Bag Book Supplies paper bags (lunch sack size) stapler paints (tempora) paint brushes flower pictures pens drawing... [read more ]

I’m giving Mr. Groundhog the whole week. One should have more than just a day, right? We don’t get groundhogs in Colorado; but we are getting 11 inches of snow so far today, with more predicted. Snow day!!!! (Everyone does a happy dance!) Here are some of my favorite links for the week. PBS Lab  Learning, games, science, technology, and... [read more ]

For Valentine’s Day, I contributed a pop-up heart activity to The Heart Project book, a book with over 100 ideas from more than 70 bloggers, all related to hearts. Jamie at hands on : as we grow organized and edited The Heart Project book for a very personal reason, her precious niece. The Heart Project book will ONLY be available in the... [read more ]

Combining art with writing often motivates children to write. I’ve tried different pop-ups with my classes and found the easiest pop-up technique is criss-crossing strips of paper. How to Make a Pop-Up 1. Cut two long identical strips of paper. Put one end on top of the other end so they make an “L” shape. 2. Fold the bottom strip... [read more ]

Guest post by Amy Webb, parent, educator, and blogger at The Thoughtful Parent. If you are the parent of a preschool-aged child, you have probably put quite a bit of thought into what type (if any) of preschool to enroll your child. If you’re like me, you had no idea how complicated a decision this could be until you started delving into the topic. Play... [read more ]