The wolf is the largest member of the canine family. Gray wolves range in color from grizzled gray or black to all-white. As the ancestor of the domestic dog, the gray wolf resembles German shepherds or malamutes. Wolves are making a comeback in the Great Lakes, Northern Rockies and Southwestern United States.
Wolves like to eat Ungulates (large hoofed mammals) like elk, deer, moose and caribou. Wolves are also known to eat beaver, rabbits and other small prey. Wolves are also scavengers and often eat animals that have died due to other causes like starvation and disease.
Wolves live, travel and hunt in packs of 4-7 animals on average. Packs include the mother and father wolves, called the alphas, their pups and several other subordinate or young animals. The alpha female and male are the pack leaders that track and hunt prey, choose den sites and establish the pack’s territory. Wolves develop close relationships and strong social bonds. They often demonstrate deep affection for their family and may even sacrifice themselves to protect the family unit.
Wolves have a complex communication system ranging from barks and whine to growls and howls. While they don’t howl at the moon, they do howl more when it’s lighter at night, which occurs more often when the moon is full.
The most common cause of death for wolves is conflict with people over livestock losses. While wolf predation on livestock is fairly uncommon, wolves that do prey on them are often killed to protect the livestock.
We hope you enjoyed reading a few facts about the grey wolf. You can easily find more facts and crafts by doing an online search. And your children may love to have a grey wolf of their own.
Available online are 3d wooden puzzles from ImagiPLAY’s line of wooden kids toys. When you want quality built educational childrens toys your children will take great delight in a new wolf puzzle.
Lions consume a wide variety of prey, from wildebeest, impala, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and wild hogs to sometimes rhinos and hippos. They will also feed on smaller animals such as hares, birds and reptiles. Lions are also known to attack elephants when food is scarce.
Both male and female lions roar, and that roar can be heard over five miles away!
The lion population in Africa has been reduced by half since the early 1950s. Today, fewer than 21,000 remain in all of Africa.
Though lions used to live in most parts of Africa, they are now found only in the south Sahara desert and in parts of southern and eastern Africa. Historically, in addition to Africa, lions were found from Greece through the Middle East to northern India
The only social member of the cat (Felidae) family, lions live in large groups called “prides,” consisting of about 15 lions. Related females and their young make up the majority of the pride. A single male, or sometimes a small group of 2-3 males, will join a pride for an indefinite period, usually about 3 years or until another group of males takes over.
We hope you enjoyed reading about the Lion, one of our favorite animals. And, if you have children two and up you may be interested in a wonderful wooden kids toy, our Safari Stacking Blocks (pictured above). Buying open ended educational childrens toys will open up many teaching opportunities as your children play, learn and increase their self-esteem.
Have we begun to expect too much academically from our children too soon? Children only have up until about second grade to be children where they can play most all of the time.
Children may be expected to know certain things when entering kindergarten but let’s not forget that they can learn through play and not formal-like lessons. This is why educational childrens toys such as adventure playsets and toy blocks are important to have in your children’s play room both at home and in their preschools.
According to Valerie Strauss in an article in the Washington Post “There is solid research on the benefits of well-designed play that teaches kids to ask questions and find their own answers”.
If you as parents see your kids playing with wooden playsets or toy blocks and think they are wasting their time, you may want to re-evaluate your opinions. Allowing your children creative playtime and providing them with open-ended toys will automatically open up exciting teaching opportunities you probably could not plan.
Let’s lessen up on pushing so hard teaching younger kids, toddlers, and preschoolers so that we do not kill the joy of learning in our children before second grade.
Reading begins with play and Little Reader blocks are cardboard blocks you will find useful and fun. Teaching kids their first 100 sight words and primary colors is easy with these toy blocks from Smart Monkey Toys.
Kids love playing with educational childrens toys and will play with them longer than other toys. They love to stack their toy blocks, count them and move them around from place to place in their wagons and trucks. As they do so you as parents and educators will have perfect teaching opportunities to help your children learn sight words in a fun, stress-free atmosphere.
Two game suggestions to use with these cardboard toy blocks is to roll them like dice and have the child name the word or color. Or, you could pull out of the stack two or three blocks that you know make a short sentence and have the child arrange the blocks into that sentence. Examples: “this is a red fish” or “he laughed”.
Little Reader Blocks are available online and ready to ship for Christmas gift giving.
As it relates to the checks and balances of our American government, the Executive Branch is responsible for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The head of the Executive Branch is the President of the United States.
Underneath the President are the several Departments that have been created by Executive Order. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Justice are just a few examples of these subgroups within the Executive Branch. The representative leaders of these departments are collectively known as the President’s “Cabinet” of advisors.
Your family games should include educational board games such as Hail to the Chief. Players move around the outside of the board answering questions on presidents and the Constitution, as you become a candidate. Then travel from state to state on the campaign trail answering questions on US history and geography to win electoral votes. Winner is the first person to make it to Washington, D.C. first with enough electoral votes.
This game is for ages 10 up and for 2-4 players. Great way to get your kids and whole family aware of how our government works.
Important lessons do not have to be learned in a classroom. Teaching children while they play increases their knowledge and you can all have fun while doing it together.
You could use blocks or other toys and place them in various locations in the room and discuss opposite relationships such as near and far. Have children build tall and short towers and discuss how many more blocks it takes to make the taller tower.
Children like to slide so you can talk about up and down as they climb up and down the ladder of a slide. Or, have running races and discuss how slow and fast are opposites.
For wonderful teaching opportunities use educational children’s toys, such as adventure playsets that include many different figures. This is a perfect way to teach about different animals, what they eat, where they live and so forth.
An African Safari wooden playset, such as the one pictured in the post, is a great visual tool to teach about Africa and the variety of animals that are indigenous to Africa. Children love open-ended toys such as play sets and as they use their imaginations to play you will have many teaching opportunities.
Educational playtime is of the utmost importance. Parents and educators alike believe educational childrens toys that promote creative play provide great educational value for your children.
3d wooden puzzles are just one of the many children’s toys that are recommended for homes, schools and as waiting room toys. It is a well know fact that children most often play with toys that provide fun play as well as creative learning opportunities.
While providing children with a new wood puzzle as often as possible you will observe your children engaging in a unique learning experience without them even knowing it. 3d wood puzzles are a good idea for beginner puzzles and they may be incorporated into other play activities because they are chunky and easy to grasp.
As with the Monkey Tree Puzzle shown above, and many other 3d wooden puzzles, an individual puzzle piece may be a complete whole character/animal. These seperate figures will be a welcome addition to incorporate with your children’s playsets and other games or to play with alone.
Young children can be encouraged to learn their abc’s with many of the educational childrens toys that are on the market today. Shopping online for wooden puzzles will provide both parents and educators a wide variety of unique abc wood puzzles.
Puzzles encourage logical thinking because they involve putting related pieces together to form a completed object. Playing with puzzles is a great quite activity and involves concentration. Nowadays it is important for children to have many “quiet” type toys to combat the world of constant stimulation.
Each puzzle piece usually has its own letter and is a different color from the piece on either side of it. Children not only learn their letters, they learn colors as well. And because 3d wood puzzles have to be assembled sequentially, children will quickly learn what letters come after one another.
When selecting an alphabet puzzle for your child you will want to make sure it is age appropriate. Also important is that you select an animal or other character that your child likes. If your child does not like dinosaurs, for instance, and you purchase a dinosaur puzzle it is likely he will set it aside and not play with it.
It is very important that you select 3d puzzles that are made from splinter-proof wood and painted with non-toxic paint.
We are all supposed to eat plenty of vegetables to stay healthy. But, are we turning into vegetables by watching too much television.
If you think the television is a baby sitter and your kids are not getting enough exercise make plans each day to stop what you are doing and get out one or your kids wooden indoor playsets or one of their other educational children’s toys and spend some quality time with them.
The Safari wooden play set shown above includes all the animal figures you see as well as the jeep with rolling wheels and is available online.
The American of Academy of Pediatrics Society suggests that children watch no more than one to two hours of “quality programming,” whether on TV or video, each day. The Academy also says that children need physical activity and personal interaction, not a diet of glaring electronic images, especially when they are lewd, violent, or inane.
Blocks toys are a great way to keep your children occupied. While creating exciting structures children learn to “work” together while they are playing – but they are also receiving educational benefits.
As children learn to share and cooperate with others they are developing important life skill such as social development. Toddlers will enjoy placing their kids building blocks into larger sized boxes and wagons and then pour them out or pile them out on the floor. Preschoolers will build towers, houses, and many other imaginative structures then knock them down and re-build again.
As your children grow they and their playmates will begin to creative more advance structures with their kids building blocks and began learning more advance planning as they decide what they actually want to do with their structures or how to use them.
With these educational childrens toys boys and girls of several age groups playing together will increase their social development as they all work in harmony playing and planning.