Reading aloud to young children is extremely beneficial to stimulating language development and cognitive skills.  It also promotes curiosity ... motivation ... and listening skills

When children are read to they develop a positive experience with books and reading that will carry on through their school years and beyond. One-on-one reading time with a parent or care provider also gives young children important bonding and nurturing time with adults.

Even reading aloud to young children for as little as fifteen minutes a day can provide many benefits that can not be gained through normal conversations or screen time.

Here are just a few of my favorite books to read to young children:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
By Eric Carle

My Very First Mother Goose
Edited by Iona Opie

Is Your Mama a Llama?
By Deborah Guarino

Goodnight Moon
By Margaret Wise Brown

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
By Eileen Christelow

Guess How Much I Love You
By Sam McBratney

Dear Zoo
By Rod Campbell

In the Tall, Tall Grass
By Denise Fleming

Good Night, Gorilla
By Peggy Rathmann

Love You Forever
By Robert Munsch

The Snowy Day
By Ezra Jack Keats

Time to Get Dressed!
By Elivia Savadier

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
By Bill Martin, Jr.

For even more book suggestions you can download my book list.

Please leave a comment and let me know what your favorite books are to read to your little ones!!

I made a strawberry lacing card for the children to work on fine motor development as well as eye-hand coordination. I printed the pattern on cardstock paper and glued it on to another sheet of cardstock paper for extra durability.

I then cut the strawberry out and laminated it and then cut it out again.  The next step was to punch the holes. I left the strawberry blank so you could decide how far apart you wanted to punch the holes for the children to lace.

I tied a lacing cord to the bottom of the strawberry but if you do not have lacing cord you can also use yarn.  You may want to put tape around the lacing end of the yard to make it easier to guide into the punched holes.

You can download the strawberry lacing card pattern here.

We have used water beads for a variety of activities and the children really enjoyed them.  I recently found a source for jumbo water beads and decided to give them a try to see what they were like.

I purchased them from etsy but the same seller also sells on ebay.  The water beads were around 7.00 dollars for a package of 24 but the seller included a few extra in case of damage during shipping.

The jumbo beads start out the same size and the finished size of the original water beads.  Because they are small objects you will want to use very close supervision for children under five.

I put the beads in a bucket of room temperature water and made sure the beads always had enough water to cover them.  The instructions that came with the beads were not the clearest as to the specific time frame it would take for the water beads to reach full size.

After one hour of soaking the beads in water they developed the look and texture of raspberries.  I was surprised how much they had grown in such a short time period.

After fours hours in water the beads had grown larger and developed smooth ridges.  The outer area of the beads started to become transparent while the center remained solid.

After twenty-four hours the beads had grown very large but still had some dimples on them which indicated that there was still room for them to grow.  The instructions stated the water beads could take 2-4 days to reach full size.

After forty-eight hours the beads had reached their full size and and we did sorting of colors and sizes as well as counting activities.  The children also free
played with them in the water which was for a sensory play activity.

We observed the changes together and the children could pick the beads up while observing but I always made sure that I was there to supervise.  After the beads reached there full-size they are pretty hard to break by just squeezing them.

You can see a video of the jumbo water beads below:

I made a ladybug math activity that is also great for number recognition as well as fine motor development. I printed the patterns on cardstock paper ... cut them out ... and then laminated them.

I set the ladybugs out along with black pony beads for the children to use as counters.  If you do not have pony beads you can also use playdough that has been rolled into small balls.

In this activity the children count out and put the same number of pony beads on the ladybug that is indicated on the leaf. As of 2022 this activity can be found in the member's section which is also where I have added ladybug alphabet and number matching.