It is a well known fact that children who have learned basic math skills do better when they enter school.  Here is one “game” to play with your toddler to give him/her a head start with his math skills.

Using toy blocks you can teach this simple lesson of kindergarten and preschool math measurement. Before you begin with the lessons, however, allow your children to just play with their cardboard building blocks without any rules. Creative play comes easy and you will enjoy watching your child make up his own activities when he is given building block toys.

Then, in a couple of weeks after your child has had a chance to explore the materials, he will be ready to use them in the structured activity that you will introduce to him. Remember that preschool learning toys for children are most often just open ended toys such as toy blocks that are just fun to play with; they do not need to know that they are really educational learning toys.

It’s lesson time!  Get out a hard covered book and three medium blue blocks sized 6 x 3 x 3 (we will show you where to see these blocks later on).  Now, line the toy blocks up against the book and pointing to each one separately count them 1 – 2 – 3.

Tell your child that your book is 3 blocks long. Repeat this visual activity of counting a couple of times.  Point out to your child where the first block is starting and where your last block ended; do not worry that your blocks are not the same exact length of the book. You could add a fourth block either now or in a week or so.

During your demonstration talk to your child about why you need to use identical blocks.  Have your toddler choose a book for himself and have him select identical blocks from his set of blocks and have him try to measure his book.

You can find more teaching measurement projects at: Kindergarten Lessons.com.

This “game” will help your children begin to get used to the idea that objects have different sizes and can be measured.  Go to All I Can Imagine to see a teaching tool to use for this and other math lessons.

Being that this is the busiest time of the year you may not have time to come up with new craft ideas to keep your kids busy; so, I did some research for you. Here are two I especially liked.

Beaded Snowflake Ornament.

What you will need:
Scissors
2 Silver and/or blue tinsel pipe cleaners per snowflake
Blue, white and silver plastic pony beads
Ornament hangers

What to do:
1. Cut the pipe cleaners in half to make 4 pieces.
2. Make a cross with two pieces, twist and secure.
3. Then add the other two pieces, twist and secure. Now you should have a snowflake shape.
4. Add a few beads to each piece of pipe cleaner.
5. Bend the ends of each
piece of pipe cleaner just enough to prevent the beads from falling off.
6. Add an ornament hanger or make a loop with the pipe cleaner to hang.

Snowman Cupcakes. (Building a snowman atop a cupcake is sure to bring a big smile to the face of any sweet tooth seeking mom or child.)

What you will need:
Your favorite flavor cupcake topped with vanilla icing
Extra icing to use as glue
Large marshmallows
Chocolate covered mints
Chocolate sprinkles
Gummy fish

What to do:
1. Separate various ingredients and form an assembly line to create the most effective snowmen building factory.
2. Use marshmallows for the body. You can make the top one smaller by cutting 1/3 off.
3. Use dabs of icing to “glue” pieces together.
3. Top the body with the chocolate covered mint for a hat.
4. Poke small holes with a wet toothpick for the eyes and insert chocolate sprinkles into the holes.
5. Use a gummy fish for the nose.
6. These are just recommended goodies, but feel free to use your imagination!

I selected these two crafts from a variety of others at this website: http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/812064/top-10-christmas-activities

While you are busy planning for your families Thanksgiving celebration your kids can be busy coloring these neat free downloadable coloring pages we found on this website.

http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanks-color.html

We also enjoyed the video that demonstrated several crafts your children can make; they even tell you all the supplies you will need before.

There were many links on the left of the website with such topics as football party recipes,  fall family activities, classic Thanksgiving recipes and much more.

FREE Thanksgiving Coloring & Activity Pages

Little Reader Blocks

You can begin teaching sight words to kids as young as infants by choosing books that pair words with depictions of those words. Many pretty and appropriate books are available and will help you teach colors, numbers, and animals as well as some of the first 100 basic sight words children need to learn.

Teaching sight words only requires a few minutes and day and plenty of patience. Children start learning sight words at a very young age and you can make it fun by using Little Reader Blocks.  These 3” cube blocks are color coded and are an educational toy and make perfect preschool learning toys for children either at home or in a daycare setting.

Sight words are considered to be words that children must memorize instead of phonetically sounding out. Children start connecting written language to meaning when teachers and parents read books, signs and anything with words printed on them.

For toddlers, choose books with short sentences and colorful illustrations. For infants and toddlers, reading the same books over and over will build recognition of concepts and develop an awareness of language and sounds.

Besides books incorporate Little Reader Blocks in your lessons and young children will have fun learning interactively.  Even before they can begin to recognize different words they can learn colors from the red, blue, green, yellow and white 3” cardboard cubes.  They will love stacking them too.

Read about many activities you can use with these wonderful toddler learning toys at: http://www.smartmonkeytoys.com/instructions/LRBPlayActivities.pdf

The set includes:

3 green noun blocks (18 nouns)
5 blue verb blocks (30 verbs)
5 red pronoun blocks (30 pronouns)
3 yellow adjective blocks (18 adjectives)
2 white preposition blocks (12 prepositions)

Educational toys make great gifts anytime of the year and provide fun opportunities for parents and children to bond and have fun while learning at the same time.

Teaching your child how to build a strong sight word vocabulary is one of several essential strategies to develop reading skill and fluency. Young learners in preschool can benefit from learning common sight words.

Children will begin to learn information from their surrounding environments so it is never too early to help them develop sight word skills.  If your children are showing early signs of learning disabilities you can begin literacy skills in ways that are appropriate for their developmental level.

Here is a website we like and you many find useful in your child’s early learning education:  http://www.ehow.com/how_6122195_teach-sight-words-preschool.html.

Remember to visit our website and read more about our Little Reader Blocks. They are on Sale!

You will love exploring several new giant stuffed animals on our website, All I Can Imagine. Our collection of plush stuffed animals now includes several new teddy bears and jungle animal toys.

You may have been pondering a purchase of some unique stuffed toys but are concerned about the quality you may find on the Internet.  Often, stuffed toy animals found in your local toy stores and super markets do not have the quality you feel safe giving your children.

When you want to make a larger sized investment in giant stuffed toys shopping online might be a better idea because you can find quality, hand sewn toys without driving all over the city to find a store which sells high-end stuffed teddy bears and other unique animals.

Purr-Fection is a company located in Oregon and has as their number one objection to satisfy, their customers by providing superb quality products at an excellent value.  All of their toy animals are hand sewn and they use only the highest quality materials in production. Their unique designs have been delighting children for many years.

Each of their toy animals have an individual character which is reflected in their expressions, softness and posability.  One especially unique product line is their Bouncy Buddies. These six inch stuffed animals have a hard rubber ball sewn into their tummies and both children and dogs love to play with such characters as a penguin, panda bear and a cute dog. (Toby is my favorite and I had to throw in another picture!)

I regressed for a moment because the focus of this blog post is our new giant stuffed animals that include a ninety inch jumbo brown bear (pictured above).  I also love the 42 inch bright green frog and the light grey elephant.  All these new stuffed animal toys are on sale.

Visit our stuffed jungle animals page to see the frog and elephant – you will love what you see!

Shop early and avoid the Christmas rush and I hope you have a large closet to hide your new toys in!

You will find many wooden kids toys on the market today, especially if you shop online. Children’s wooden toys are made with quality craftsmanship in small family businesses as well as mass produced by large companies.

A natural made material, wood can be recycled and often wood blocks and indoor play sets are made from recycled materials. Wooden toys are more durable and children have always been more attracted to a wooden toy. When you teach your children to properly care for their children’s wooden toys they could possibly last their entire childhood and even be kept and passed down to their children.

When you see a room full of toys and children you may easily notice they gravitate to the toddler learning toys that are made of wood.  Wood toys make us feel nostalgic. Wood is comforting and is one of the reasons they are worthy enough to be passed on from one generation to the next.

A Day at the Zoo Wooden Play Set

Wood toys remain a sensible choice for toddler toys and will keep your children busy playing for hours on end.  Play is an essential part of all kid’s learning and emotional development. A wood toy is most often a toy that comes with no rules.  Whether a truck, a doll house, a miniature farm animal set, or a play set such A Day at the Zoo children will be encouraged to learn by touching and exploring.

Parents and educators can utilize a child’s play time as an educational lesson as they ask open ended question pertaining to their play activities.  The individual play pieces can be used in other make up games or incorporated in other games.

When you visit our website All I Can Imagine you may notice some changes.  Many of the wooden toys have been discontinued and are no longer available.  ImagiPLAY has been purchased by BeginAgain Toys, an eco-toy company based in Fort Collins, Colorado.  This company is going to be offering many of the ImagiPLAY toys you are used to seeing online and they also plan on updating several of the current designs for release in 2012.

Updates will be provided on our website and this BLOG as they come available.

Christmas will be here before you know it; shop early!

Opening up your current IRA statement is risky business these days. Depression can easily set in as people see how much money was lost during the last quarter. With the economy not improving and more and more people getting laid off it has become necessary for people to find a new way to make money.

Unlike brick and mortar businesses which require a substantial investment, an online business requires a fraction of the investment.  Many people nowadays are looking for either a job or a second job because they need to find new ways of making money.

During the Great Depression people did not have the educational resources currently available today such as technical colleges and online school classes. Neither did they have computers and the Internet to do searches on and find information about upgrading their current skills and level of education.

With the high cost of child care oft times it hardly pays to put a child in a day care center and go off for the day working for someone else for minimum amount of pay. These part time jobs or maybe even a full time job do not provide the benefits a family would require to make it worth their while to leave home.

Families are stretched to their limits emotionally and physically as they try to schedule child care along with which parent will be home when. Providing money for just the basic necessities is increasingly difficult with no hope of a brighter future including college for the children.

Even people with marketable skills and even a college education are having trouble making ends meet.  People who used to have a good income or who are still gainfully employed are beginning to look to the Internet.  People are searching for such topics as:

• how to make a website
• how to sell products online
• how to make money on the Internet

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People need jobs today; they need to make more money.  The good news for people nowadays that those suffering job losses during the Great Depression did not have is called Internet Marketing.  Families can spend more time at home. When people own home based businesses they spend less money on gas and more time at home.

Small businesses that were family owned is what got our great country started.  Small, family run businesses are still the backbone of our country and our economy. There are many success stories we have heard about where small, family run business that were begun in a kitchen, garage, or small building grew into giant corporations.

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It is a simple fact; more and more people are tired of struggling and see no upcoming improvement with the economy. Families are sick and tired of working more than one, two or three jobs just to put food on the table and pay the rent and are looking on the Internet by the groves to try and find out how to make money on the Internet.

Frustrating as it is much information is available for people looking for information about how  to make a website and begin to sell products online.  However, it becomes overwhelming after reading all the information available and they do not know where to begin.

There is much to learn when a person tries to begin a new career path and have no idea where to begin.  Garbage and misleading information is advertised to try and lure people to spend thousands of dollars on some product.  Websites tell people they can make a lot of money in a short period of time – get rich quick ideas that do not work, and people are desperate to try it and are later grossly disappointed.

Now today, Chris Douthit enters the scene.  Chris is an Internet marketer who has made a living strictly on-line since 2003 by designing software, authoring numerous books, video courses and consulting over this period.  He graduated with double Business Administration degrees in Corporate Finance and Real Estate.  Soon after he started a career on the Pacific Stock Exchange options division working for one of the largest investment banks in the world.

He thrived in a competitive environment learning the key fundamentals to a successful business.  After several years working on the business side of the technology Chris decided to enter graduate school and pursue a degree in Computer Science. Here he learned how to support himself working only a few hours a day on-line while putting himself through school.

Today, Chris has turned his education and business training into a profitable business which he now runs from the comfort of his own home.  Chris’s goal is to make web tools that work better and cost less.

He was tired of paying high costs for needed tools to run an online company.  Therefore Chris decided to do something about it and made his own affiliate software that has double the features of any other system on the market and comes with half the price tag. Chris also developed his own membership software that he gives out for free.

Learn How to Make a Website and Make Money Online

With the new Chris Douthit System, which is not a get rich quick gimmick by any means, people of any skill level, from total beginner to moderately advanced, will be have an exact road map to online business success.  He is providing everything a person needs to get started in a new career path by providing step-by-step training in how to make a website, how to sell products online and finally and most importantly, how to make money on the Internet.

People need jobs today; they need to make more money.  The good news for people nowadays that those suffering job losses during the Great Depression did not have is called Internet Marketing.  Families can spend more time at home. When people own home based businesses they spend less money on gas and more time at home.

Small businesses that were family owned is what got our great country started.  Small, family run businesses are still the backbone of our country and our economy. There are many success stories we have heard about where small, family run business that were begun in a kitchen, garage, or small building grew into giant corporations.

Thank God for the USA and all the opportunities each person who lives in this country has who is willing to work.  Taking pride in ourselves and our hard work is, and always has been, our link to self-fulfillment and pride in ourselves.

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The past several weeks I have seen some giant stuffed animals in a couple of stores I frequent. I keep remembering that a little girl had taken one and set it on the floor and was sitting inside the legs of this giant bear and leaning back into its arms.  It was a “Kodak Moment” I should have taken advantage of.

Back in the 1830’s plush stuffed animals were first introduced, or so it is said.  People who lived in this era did not have factories that had the variety and quality of stuffing’s that are used nowadays. Stuffed animals in the 1800’s tended to be made at home and with materials such as cloth and straw.

Luckily for our children’s safety new materials became the norm including cotton and various types of synthetic fibers.  Stuffed animals could now be quickly and inexpensively produced.

It may surprise you to learn that stuffed animals actually evolved from stuffing real animals that had been killed.  Hunters are great fans of stuffing the deer, fish and other animals they have hunted and killed.  Many homes have a den where these “trophies” are displayed.

Although popular children’s toys include many different electronic gadgets kids still need many open-ended toys that come with no rules. Besides blocks and puzzles stuffed toys are a staple in any child’s toy arsenal.

Classic plush animals such as Raggedy Anne and Andy, teddy bears and many Disney characters are still quite popular and are considered collector’s items that many people search for on the Internet.  If found in good shape these stuffed animals can demand a great deal of money.  If you have some of these in your attic or basement it is a good idea to make sure they are kept in airtight and water-tight packaging.

Kids Crafts: Make Your Own Stuffed Animal From A Pattern

Visit All I Can Imagine to see our selection of plush toys and giant classic teddy bears. If you want an unusual stuffed animals you may enjoy viewing our giant orangutan and gibbon in our Jungle Stuffed Animal Category.

The economy is not getting any better and may not do so for a while.  You probably know many people who are struggling, out of work or may have just given up finding a job. Maybe this describes someone close to you.

You may have been thinking about making a website for yourself and going into business to make money on the Internet but did not know where to begin.  If so, you are like thousands of others who want to sell products or information online but have no clue as to where to begin.

I was at this place several years ago and did a lot of research and spent several thousand dollars to get a website up and running.  But today there is good news; you no longer have to spend thousands of dollars to get learn how to make a website. Today’s product launch called the Chris Douthit System will teach anyone who wants to make his or her own website:

• how to make a website
• how to sell products online
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