Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

Quinoa Lettuce Wraps Recipe

March 15, 2022September 22, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Kids can be hesitant to try new foods. Foods that look different or are a different texture than what they are used to. Sometimes, getting the kids active in the cooking process can help ease anxieties about trying that new food sitting on their dinner plate.

Cooking with Kids is one of our favorite ways to spend time together. So much learning happens in the kitchen and involving kids in the cooking process is quality time with talking and creating. We made this Quinoa Lettuce Wrap recipe as part of our Cooking With Kids A-Z series (We’re already up to letter Q!). You can see all of the recipes here. Be sure to try this quinoa recipe if your kids are a little hesitant to try the small seed known as quinoa. It’s packed with protein, has a mild flavor, and is gluten-free. With the crunch of a leafy lettuce wrap, this Quinoa Recipe is one you want to try!

Quinoa Lettuce Wrap Recipe

This post contains affiliate links.

To make the Quinoa Lettuce Wrap, you’ll need the following ingredients:

1 cup quinoa, dry and cooked according to the package directions

1 carrot, shredded

1 can black beans

1 tomato, diced

1 head iceberg lettuce or romaine lettuce

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon Balsamic Vinegar

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Grated Parmesan cheese, to taste

To make the quinoa, first measure out the dry quinoa and water as indicated on the packaging. Measuring dry and wet ingredients is a great learning opportunity for kids.

Amazon affiliate links included:

We love our measuring set for easy measuring with big numbers and clear glass for easily seeing the level of ingredients.

While the quinoa is cooking in the water, show your child how to slice and dice a tomato using a child-friendly knife. Shred the carrot using a

vegetable grater(This one is awesome for kids!).

Show your child how to open the can of beans, being careful with sharp edges of the can. This safety can opener is great for kids. Using a colander, drain the beans and rinse with water.

Add the tomatoes, carrots, and beans to the quinoa and stir. Continue to cook for 10 minutes. Add the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and stir. Cover and allow the mixture to sit while you separate the leaves of the lettuce.

Kids can gently remove leaves from the head of lettuce one at a time. To more easily remove the leaves, cut off the base of the head.

Show your child how to carefully peel the lettuce leaves from the head and place them on a plate.

Now you can fill the leaves with the quinoa mixture. Scoop quinoa into the lettuce and add grated Parmesan cheese and salt/pepper to taste.

Carefully wrap the lettuce leaf around the quinoa and enjoy!

You can also eat the filling right in a bowl. This is one of our favorite quinoa recipes. Loaded with veggies and protein, it could be a meal in itself!

Looking for more Cooking With Kids recipes? Try a few of our most recent culinary fun:

M is for Mushrooms: Veggie Quesadilla Recipe | N is for Nuts: Honey Roasted Nuts Popcorn | O is for Olives: Antipasto Skewer Kabobs | P is for Peppers: Asian Chicken

Alphabet Discovery Bottle

October 15, 2024September 21, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Sometimes learning letters can be tricky for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Remembering all of those letters (26 is a lot!) is frustrating and difficult and kids just aren’t into identifying the letters of the alphabet. Many times you have a child who picks up on letters right away. You can see posts on Facebook where proud parents are touting their two year old who knows all of the letters and the sounds they make. They are proud mamas and papas and deserve to share their excitement with all of their friends on social media! But sometimes, you have kids who just aren’t into learning letters. As much as you try to introduce the ABC’s, some kids just have more trouble recognizing the way a letter looks, recalling the letter name, and identifying the letter’s sound. Creative and multi-sensory teaching techniques can help with kids who are resistant in trying yet another letter learning activity. We made this ABC letter identification discovery bottle to practice letter recognition. Have you made a sensory bottle yet? These are very cool calming sensory tools in learning and play!

Alphabet Letter Recognition Discovery Bottle

My three year old is always up for an interesting activity. She is my little helper when it comes to our cooking with kids recipes. Whenever I have an activity set up, she is always game to play! This sensory bottle was just for her as we practiced naming the letters of the alphabet. She helped me make our letter discovery bottle and that was part of the fun! (I’m including affiliate links in this post.)

To make a sensory discovery bottle based on letters, you’ll need just two items:

Foam Alphabet Puzzle
(This is not the type of puzzle we used in our bottle. We found ours at a garage sale long ago. However, these foam letters would work in your discovery bottle. And if you find a puzzle like ours at a yard sale, grab it up!)

Scented bath salts

So making this scented scenory letter activity is beyond easy. First, dump out half of the salts into a large bowl. Add in your foam letters. Kids will LOVE doing this part of the activity. Ask them to help you name the letters as you drop them in one by one. Then, when you’ve got all the letters (or as many as your bottle can handle), start scooping in the remaining bath salts. This is such a great sensory activity for kids. The sense of scent (or olfactory sense) is one linked to recall. How many times do you recognize a scent form your past and recall memories associated with that smell? Invite your child to sniff the air as you scoop the salts back into the container.

**NOTE** Be sure to stay with your child as you do this part, and any parts of this activity. Children should not taste the bath salts and if your child may put items into their mouth, refrain from allowing them to scoop the bath salts. As with any activity on this blog, be sure to use your best judgement with your child’s needs and abilities and provide direct supervision.

You may want to glue the lid shut at this point, before allowing your child to play with the discovery bottle.

Next, start playing! Allow your child to shake, roll, shake some more with the discovery bottle. Invite them to shake until they find and can identify the letters in the bottle. Shaking the bottle has weight and provides proprioceptive input to kids. Depending on the size of your bath salts bottle, it can be on the heavy side. Use this activity as a warm up to fine motor tasks such as handwriting or drawing.

Alternate ways to play with this letter sensory bottle:

Look and search for letters. As you find one, name it with your child. Ask them to shake the bottle and search until they find that letter again.
Shake and roll the bottle and ask your child to name the first letter they see. Have them shake and roll until they find letters in alphabetical order.
Ask your child to find a letter that starts the word “apple, ant…”. Name words for each letter and ask your child to find those letters in the sensory bottle.
When your child finds a letter, ask them to name words that start with that letter’s sound.
Use the empty puzzle. Point to a letter spot and ask your child to name that letter and then find it in the discovery bottle.
Ask your child to shake the discovery bottle and find a letter. Ask them to point to that letter’s spot in the empty puzzle.
Ask your child to find a letter in the discovery bottle. When they do, ask them to use the discovery bottle like a pointer and draw that letter in the air, using both hands on the bottle. Provide hand-over-hand assistance, if needed.
Look around the room and play “I Spy”. Say to your child, “I Spy something that starts with the letter B.” Have them guess the item in the room, then shake the sensory bottle and find the letter “B” in the discovery bottle.

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Looking for more discovery bottle ideas using dry materials? You know: rice, corn, paper, seeds…how many dry materials can you think of to use in a discovery bottle?

More creative letter learning ideas that your child will love:

Name Soup Writing Your Name | Building Letters Cotton Swabs | Fizzy Dough Letters | Handwriting Cookie Cutters

Paper Football Sight Words

July 11, 2019September 13, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

What do you do when your Kindergarten student would rather play paper football than practice sight words? You combine his love of flicking folded paper across the table with introducing new words! This Paper Football Sight Word game will get the most resistant student excited about scoring sight word touchdowns!

Sight word paper football game for Kindergarten students and beginner readers.

Paper Football Sight Word Game

This post contains affiliate links. This sight word activity is really easy to throw together. I used Jenga game pieces and a sheet of Green Cardstock to make the football field pretty easily. To make the goal posts, tape the pieces into a goal post shape using little “donuts” of tape. Stick more tape to the bottom piece to keep the goal post in place. Here’s a hint that we shared about the Jenga pieces over on our Instagram page. Grab up a Jenga game at your dollar store or $5 store for cheap play. we use these blocks for all kinds of creative play and learning. (Follow us on Instagram so you can see our daily fun!)

Next you’ll make a paper football. We used a strip of brown paper bag for a nice brown football.

How to fold a paper football:

Now, I know that many of you, my lovely readers were note-passing-in-grade-school-on-up-through-high-school-who-passed-so-many-notes-your-locker-was-filled-a-third-of-the-way-with-folded-triangle-notes KNOW how to fold a triangle shaped paper note (I mean football).

This was you, too…right?

But. Just in case you didn’t fill your locker with paper triangles of notes from friends, here is how you fold a paper football:

Cut a small paper bag in half, long-ways. Then, cut down the sides so you have a long strip of paper that makes up both sides of the paper bag.

Starting at one side of the strip, fold over a triangle. Continue to fold the triangle over and over down the length of the strip of paper. When you get to the end of the strip, tuck the remaining paper into the folds of the triangle. Add a bit of tape to keep your football’s shape as you play paper football.

$Sight word paper football game for Kindergarten students and beginner readers.$

Then, on your Green Cardstock, draw lines for each of the 10 yard lines. You can add numbers in for the lines. (Practice counting off by tens with your child while doing this!)

To practice sight words, write a sight word on each yard line. Start playing paper football. When the point of the football falls close to a word, have your child read the sight word.

Looking for more Kindergarten sight word activities? Try these:

Rock Letter Blends Word Building | Sight Word Sticky Board | Puzzle Rhymes

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Pirate Puppet Craft

August 11, 2022September 11, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Argh! September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and we’ve joined a handful of bloggers from all over the world in Pirate crafts and activities for kids. We made this Pirate Puppet craft using a cupcake liner and are ready for Pirate fun. So, Yo Ho Ho! Let’s make Pirate Puppets!

Pirate Puppet Craft

This post contains affiliate links. We started with a few materials for our Pirate Puppet craft:

Poster Paint
(in Black, White, and Yellow)
Red cupcake liner
A Jumbo Craft Stick
Black Permanent Marker
Tape
Glue
Cardstock
(or construction paper) for the Pirate’s face

Start by painting most of the craft stick with poster paint. We love THIS BRAND for it’s bold colors that dry brightly. Add a yellow strip or triangle-ish shape tot the top of the craft stick. The nice thing about this craft is that it doesn’t have to be exact, let your child’s imagination run wild with their Pirate’s clothes and painting!

Allow the paint to dry while you create the puppet’s head. Cut the Red cupcake liner in half to create the Pirate’s hat. Cut the cardstock in half and glue the cupcake liner to the edge of the face.

Add block dots with the marker. You can also use washable markers! My 8 year old has a new-found love for permanent markers, though and was happy to make the dots with hers.

Add a Pirate-y smirk or angry face if you like.

We decided to add an eye patch, too.

Finally, tape the dry craft stick to the Pirate puppet’s head. You will have to allow a couple of hours for the paint to dry, but then be sure to pretend play Pirate stories and Pirate jokes! Let us know did you make this craft.

Stop by and see what the other bloggers in our Pirate blog hop have created:

Click on the button below to see them all in one place over on Peakle Pie:

Backyard Pirate Treasure Hunt (Map) – Umbrella Tree Cafe

Make Your Own Pirate Treasure – The Gingerbread House

Set Sail with this DIY Pirate Boat – The Resourceful Mama

It’s a Pirate’s Life for Me – Study at Home Mama

Pirate Science: Fool’s Gold, Parrots and Shipwrecks! – Share it! Science News

Pirate Colouring Pages – In The Playroom

Pirate Books for Kids of All Ages – Superheroes and Teacups

Treasure Chest Craft – Messy Little Monster

How Did Pirates Navigate? How to Read a Map – Schooling a Monkey

Pirate Sensory Bin – Life with Moore Babies

Pirate Preschool Printable – Living Life and Learning

Pirate Perler Bead Patterns – Brain Power Boy

Going on a Pirate Treasure Hunt – Play & Learn Everyday

Pirate Treasure Math Printables – Kidz Activities

Treasure Alphabet Match – The Kindergarten Connection

Make Your Own Pirate Map – My Little Poppies

Non Scary Pirate Books and Movies – Edventures with Kids

Fizzing Pirate Treasure Adventure – Preschool Powol Packets

More crafts you will love:

Circus Tent Craft | Jack Be Nimble Nursery Rhyme Craft | There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe Craft | Sun Catcher Crafts

Diagraph Spelling Word Poems

August 11, 2022September 10, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This week the theme in our Second Grade Learning series is Poetry. We are well into the swing of our school year and second grade Spelling words do need a lot of practice at home. We decided to create poems using our -CH and -TCH Digraphs Spelling Word list. This was a lot of fun for my second grader and I. She really got into creating rhyming lines of our poetry. This is one spelling practice technique, we’ll definitely be using throughout the year as we practice spelling words and words that sound similar this school year.

Diagraph activity for spelling words. This activity is for second graders and involves writing spelling word poetry, but these diagraph spelling words can be done with all ages.

Second Grade English Language Arts: Poetry with Spelling Words

(Affiliate links are included in this post.) We started out with our Spelling list for the week, which were words containing the similarly sounding -CH and -TCH ending diagraphs. These words can be tricky for students to learn because the sound is so alike. We needed a little extra practice before the week’s test, so this poem building exercise was perfect.

We started off by cutting out rectangles of cardstock. I wrote out each word from the spelling list, adding in a few that contain the -CH and -TCH ending diagraphs.

We started by sorting all of the words in the pile. This activity was a good way to review the words and recognize that words with -CH or -TCH rhyme. We identified several rhyming pairs.

Next, we used the rhyming pairs to create rhyming lines of poetry. We built a poem by piecing in the rhyming lines. To do this, we pulled out a pair of rhyming word cards and placed them on our paper. We wrote lines of the poem around the spelling words, using the spelling word as the ending of the line of poetry. It was fun for my daughter to come up with lines that used both words of the pair in a way that made sense. She liked the puzzle of building lines of her poem and wanted to create more.

To make this a collaboration between the two of us, we took turns creating lines of the poem. What a fun way to write and create together. While we wrote, we talked about the rhythm of the lines of our poem. We discussed the beat of the lines and how that added to our poetry.

What are your favorite ways to learn and practice diapgraphs? Here are a few fun ways that we discovered by doing this activity together:

Write a diagraph poem. Try it. It’s fun!
Sort words by diagraph.
Match pairs of rhyming words. Notice how the matching words (like arch and march) contain many of the same letters.
Use flashcards to do a scavenger hunt.
Practice diagraph words with balloons.
Make a sensory bin with diagraph words.
Use ping pong balls in learning diagraphs.

Stop by and see what the Second Grade Blogger Team have done with Poetry this week:

Classic Poetry for 2nd Graders – from Look! We’re Learning

9 Poetry Books your child might enjoy – Planet Smarty Pants

Introducing Children to the poems of Rober Louis Stevenson – In the Playroom

Hand print Poetry – Creative Family Fun

Autumn Fires Copywork – Sallie Borrink Learning

Cinquain Poetry for Kids – Still Playing School

Solar System Poetry – Rainy Day Mum

Germ Craft to Teach Kids About Germs

November 4, 2019September 8, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

With kids, germs and illness happen. We found this fun germ book at our library recently and had so much fun reading and learning about how germs spread, that we had to make a Germ Craft to go along with the book. Get ready to teach kids about germs and get crafty!

Germ craft based on a kids book, Germs by Ross Collins. This is great for teaching kids how germs are spread. — This book about germs is a fun addition to a fine motor germ craft!

Make these! So cute. Not like real germs.

Germ craft to show how germs are spread:

Did you know we do a lot of crafts and activities based on books? This one had to be added to “read and create about it” list. It really is a gem of a germ book. Because fuzzy germs are cute. And we sure do love our craft time.

This post contains affiliate links.

This time of year especially, it’s important to teach kids how germs and sickness are spread from person to person. Germs, by Ross Collins is such a cute book that shows in detail how a germ gets into a person and is fought off by white blood cells. The pictures in this book are detailed and fun. My kids giggled at the pictures of the germs and were mesmerized by the silly story. We decided to make a germ of our own that was just as fun and silly!

Germ craft for kids

For your germ craft, you’ll need just a few materials:

Embroidery Floss
(We received ours from www.craftprojectideas.com.)
Googly Eyes
Glue
Fork
Scissors

This is such a fun and addicting craft to make. First, chose the colors of Embroidery Floss you want to use for your germs. Next, create puff balls from the thread. Simply use a fork to wrap the thread around and around the edges. Tie the thread to one prong of the fork or just hold it in place with your thumb. Then, wrap the thread around the prongs of the fork and until you have a a large puff. Feel free to use a whole length of the thread.

This germ craft is a great way to work on bilateral coordination, motor planning, dexterity, and eye-hand coordination.

Tie a small piece of floss around the middle in a knot. Slide the floss from the fork and snip the looped edges. Fluff out your puff ball by lightly pulling at the threads. Careful! The threads will pull right out of the pom pom if you pull too hard. With scissors, snip any stray threads.

Next, Glue on the Googly Eyes. How cute are these germs?

Germ Book and Germ Activities

First, read the book, Germs. Then, make a few germ crafts for the kiddos. Use these cute germs in showing kids how the icky germs are spread. Practice blowing them from your child’s hand and they can see how a cough or sneeze will make the puffball germs (and real germs!) fly.

Set them on a table surface and notice how a little breeze or breath will make them move. Use a tissue and cover the child’s nose. They can hold the tissue in place and try to blow the germ crafts. Do they blow as far or move at all? Teach kids about germs and how they move when a tissue is used.

Place the germ craft on the floow and use a straw to blow the germs. See how far they spread on a hard floor.

How many other ways can you think of to use these pretty little friendly germs spread just like bad, illness inducing germs?

This craft can be a helpful addition to teaching kids to blow their own nose.

Use this germ book and germ craft to teach kids about how germs spread.

Have fun making germs of your own (And only cute fuzzy germs like this. Stay Healthy!)

How can you make this germ craft cuter? Try adding glitter, gems, yarn, or other embellishments.

Looking for more fun kids’ crafts? Try these:

Empathy Beads Craft | Potato Stamp Crafts | I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Color Identification Craft | Bernoulli’s Principle Glider

Asian Chicken Recipe Kids Love

July 11, 2019September 1, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Today we’re sharing a favorite recipe in our house. This Asian Chicken is easy to throw together and always a hit with the kids. This week in our Cooking With Kids A-Z series, we’re sharing P for Peppers. This chicken dish is full of red and green peppers and perfect for filling your family with vegetables! Cooking with kids is such a fun learning experience and this recipe is no exception. Chopping, stirring, dicing, and cooking makes this family dinner recipe a great way to learn with your dinner.

Asian Chicken recipe for kids and families, part of the Cooking with Kids A-Z series where kids can cook their way through the alphabet with healthy meal ideas.

Asian Chicken Recipe for Family Dinner

This post contains affiliate links.

To make Asian Chicken, you’ll need the following ingredients:
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/4 cup Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon chopped garlic
2 Tablespoons honey
1 pound chicken breast, diced
1 large green pepper
1 large red pepper
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
2-3 Mandarin oranges, peeled and separated
Edamame, steamed
Rice, enough to feed your family (We make servings for 6).

There are a lot of steps in this recipe, but they are not complicated, and only provide a complex direction following task set for your kids as they cook alongside you. You can break down the steps of this recipe into one-two step parts to reduce the complexity for younger children.

To begin, warm the olive oil in a saute pan. Add the chopped garlic and brown slightly by stirring. Add the chicken and cook on all sides. Meanwhile, cut the peppers. To make chopping red and green peppers easier for smaller kids, you can first slice the peppers into strips, Julienne style. Kids can then easily chop the peppers using a Safety knife. Have them chop the red and green peppers into large pieces.

Cook the edamame. To cook, bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the edamame and cook for a few minutes. Drain the beans and cool them by rinsing. Shell the beans by squeezing the pods. Kids love to pop open edamame shells and separate the beans. Set aside.

Peel and separate the Mandarin oranges. Set aside.

Peel and dice the Carrots. I love this Kid-friendly safety vegetable peeler.

Cook the rice. Set aside.

Once the chicken has browned, add the soy sauce and honey. Stir to coat the chicken and add the red and green peppers, and edamame. Cook covered for 10 minutes, stirring often. Remove the lid and add the mandarin oranges. Cook and stir for 2-3 minutes more.

Remove from heat and serve over rice.

Pepper Recipes for Kids:

Looking for more recipes using peppers? See what the Cooking With Kids A-Z team has come up with this week using peppers:

Salami and Banana Pepper Stromboli from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Stuffed Peppers from Rainy Day Mum

You will want to follow along on our Cooking With Kids Pinterest board, too:

Follow Sugar Aunts’s board Cooking with Kids on Pinterest.

Our most recent Cooking with Kids recipes:

M is for Mushrooms: Veggie Quesadilla Recipe | N is for Nuts: Honey Roasted Nuts Popcorn | O is for Olives: Antipasto Skewer Kabobs

Want to cook healthy foods for your family? Grab Yum! Deliciously Healthy Meals for Kids, a cookbook for busy families that want healthy meal ideas.

Get your cookbook today!

Preschool Books and Activities

March 9, 2023August 25, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Children can explore books through their senses and with a hands-on approach while learning and making memories. These preschool books and the activities that we’ve come up with…are popular children’s books that are fun to read, and fun to play along with! These are book extension activities that we’ve read and come up with book-based sensory play ideas, regulation ideas, fine motor activities, crafts, and more. Check out the list below, because these are some of our favorite ways to use books in therapy activities and learning!

The fine motor activities for preschoolers page is another great place to find activity ideas to meet the needs of preschool children. Many of the book activities here incorporate developmentally appropriate play activities using these concepts.

Preschool book extension activities to use to explore children's books through play. Use these preschool books in activities for kids!

Preschool ACTIVITY Books

We love coming up with fun crafts and activities based on favorite books. This is a collection of crafts and activities that go along with some fun books for Preschoolers, Toddlers, and School-aged kids.

Kids remember the activity that you create for a book long after they’ve read a book. So often, my kids will say (out of the blue), “Hey Mom, remember when we made bear puppets?” in reference to our We’re Going on a Bear Hunt activity.

We love to create multi-sensory play and learning enrichment activities to extend themes of books. We’ve covered many Preschool books and activities in our blogging days, but also many school-aged books with creative play and learning ideas. We’ll be adding to this page, so be sure to stop back for more fun ideas!

Related, these friendship activities for preschoolers are more great tools to address social emotional learning in young children.

Preschool, Toddler, and School-aged Children’s Books and Crafts Activities

This post contains affiliate links.

Quick As a Cricket Empathy Bracelets

My Many Colored Days Feelings Calendar

Olive The Other Reindeer Ornament

Little Blue and Little Yellow Magic Foaming Dough

Big Red Barn Puppets

Beautiful Oops Folded Paper Craft

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Body Identification

The Day The Crayons Quit Sensory Art

Freight Train Color Snack

Ish Block Sculptures

Make Way For Ducklings Sensory Play

Goodnight Moon Memory Game

Deep Blue Sea Sensory Bin | Dinosaurumpus Movement Game | I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Color Identification | Bear Sees Colors Snack

Kindergarten Books

Little Blue and Little Yellow Puffy Paint

Elmer Color Learning Activity

The Kissing Hand salt dough charm

Mix It Up! Sand Fingerprint Art and Candle Holder

Bears on Wheels Letter Match

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt snack puppets

Press Here Sensory Bin

Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes

Harold and the Purple Crayon Play Dough

Snowball Fight Math and Painting

Ten Apples Up on Top Baked Cotton Balls

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Letter Learning Activity

The Mixed Up Chameleon Snack Mix

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons Snack

Germs craft

Leonardo The Terrible Monster Friendship Game

Steam Train Dream Train busy bag

Monster at the End of this Book

Books We LOVE (Book Lists):

Books to Say I Love You

Books About Siblings

Outer Space Books

The books Preschoolers LOVE:

Activities and crafts based on Preschool and Toddler books. This blog has so many quick and easy ideas for kids!

hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books! This digital e-book (or physical book, available on Amazon), contains 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development. This resource includes activities, crafts, hands-on play ideas, and so much more. There are activities based on 10 popular children’s books:

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

The Day the Crayons Quit

Leonardo the Terrible Monster

Boy + Bot

Little Blue and Little Yellow

Red

The Adventures of Beekle

Chrysanthemum

Penguin and Pinecone

Whoever You Are

Each activity is designed to be hands-on and encourage acceptance, empathy, and friendship through play and sensory exploration. This book allows children to explore their favorite children’s books with their senses! Includes printable resources.

GET THE E-BOOK

Amazon affiliate link:

Get the PRINT BOOK

Kids Party Theme Ideas

October 10, 2023August 21, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Kids’ parties don’t need to be outrageous and extravagant. We love to throw easy and creative birthday parties and themed play dates (occasionally-themed days are NOT an every day thing. Or even a frequent thing around here!). Sometimes it is nice to celebrate the child and the excitement of youth with a special day. Sure it can be easy to get out of control with themed days or celebrations. But, childhood is such a fleeting time and being a mother to a child is such a thing to celebrate. It is an honor to use creative ideas in celebration of the day…whether it be a birthday or a special play date. Then there are the creative ways to celebrate neighbors or special people in you life. A thoughtful special day would be a fun way to spend time and build memories with a niece or nephew. Put together a quick and easy water bead tea party or a sleepover waffle bar for special time with your special little ones!

Party Theme Ideas for Kids

Party ideas for kids' birthday parties, themed play dates, and celebrating special little ones.

Some of our favorite ways to celebrate special times with our kids and nieces and nephews:
Kids party themes, games, themed food and snacks, decorations, activities, favors, and crafts can be found for each party theme. Have fun planning your child’s party or themed play date. Don’t stress about making the day extra special, just enjoy the being creative in honor of your special someone!