Products I Recommend
These are toys and products my children love and have been instrumental in their growth, development, and happiness. (No, I do not make any money for this.)
Environment
Chalk Board Paint
I never realized how much I loved our chalk board wall until we painted over it. I decided I couldn't live with out it and we redid another larger space in chalk board paint! It is wonderful way to create imaginative pictures, practice letters, and words, and a have a huge space that is constantly changing and keeping up with your child's current interests.
Toys
Lakeshore Teacher Store
I love this place! They specialize in learning toys and anyone can buy from their stores and catalogs.
Leap Frog Frig Phonics and Word Whammer
This toy also teaches the letter names and sounds. It has the same songs and characters from the movie Letter Factory. The noise does drive me a little crazy but I can't argue when the sing along to letter sounds songs!
These are toys and products my children love and have been instrumental in their growth, development, and happiness. (No, I do not make any money for this.)
Environment
Chalk Board Paint
I never realized how much I loved our chalk board wall until we painted over it. I decided I couldn't live with out it and we redid another larger space in chalk board paint! It is wonderful way to create imaginative pictures, practice letters, and words, and a have a huge space that is constantly changing and keeping up with your child's current interests.
Toys
Lakeshore Teacher Store
I love this place! They specialize in learning toys and anyone can buy from their stores and catalogs.
Leap Frog Frig Phonics and Word Whammer
This toy also teaches the letter names and sounds. It has the same songs and characters from the movie Letter Factory. The noise does drive me a little crazy but I can't argue when the sing along to letter sounds songs!
Signing Times
We were thrilled to meet Rachel!
These videos are unbelievable. We own many many titles and my children love them. We also own the CD's so we can sing the songs and practice our signing. They are positive, upbeat and teach you American Sign Language. The story behind the creation of Two Little Hands production is emotional and inspiring. Check out the videos and Rachel's blog.
Sid the Science Kid
Sid is the reason my children walk around with magnifying glasses and inspect bugs, toys, skin, buttons...etc. They also want to do investigations and learn "everything about everything!" I love this show. We try to watch and then do the investigations ourselves. Sometimes I have gotten them to draw pictures in their "science journal".
Laura Berkner Band
I love the video because my children never watch it while sitting down. They sing and dance along with Laurie, the band, and a group of kids. The songs are catchy but require listening skills to follow the directions, start and stop moving, sing soft and loud, rhyme, and do call and response. We also have the songs on CD.
Richard Scarry
Learning Songs, Mother Goose, Busy Town. These videos do a nice job with basic preschool themes and background knowledge. It was not until we saw Mother Goose that I realized my children weren't really aware of many nursery rhymes! Now they know many by heart and notice when Nursery Rhymes are mentioned. (This is more often than you think!) Busy Town talks about community workers. Learning Songs is a great collection.
Blue's Clues
My daughter was playing doctor the other day and asked me if she could check my ears with the otoscope! What?! Blue goes to see Doctor Mia for a check up and the doctor tells Blue all the names of the instruments. -I was impressed! My son asked me if I new that chartreuse was like the color green, again Blues Clues. I love the format, the way kids get involved, and the wonderful preschool themes like habitat that Blues Clues incorporates into their videos. Blue also does basic color and shape type videos as well.
Leap Frog Videos
This is an excellent resource for letter names and sounds. Many phonics videos and toys do not actually make the "correct" sounds, this one does. My children both know all the letters and sounds because of this video. We own this one and have checked out the other Leap Frog videos; Code Word Caper, Story Book, and Numbers, they also were very good but a little advanced for 2-3 year olds.
