Building Toys: Connecta Straws

Building Toys: Connecta Straws

Building toys are important for young and older children. They provide many opportunities for mind development, physical development, creativity, and logical reasoning. They are great investments and can be used in multiple ways. These Connecta Straws are fine

building toys

to add to your classroom toy collection or even to your home toy connection.

When children are using the Connecta Straw

building toys

they are using fine motor skills. This is important for little ones, ages 4, 5 and 6. They are building muscles in their hands as they pinch the ends of these straws and fit them in to connectors. It develops eye-hand coordination as well. These straws are great tools for little ones to just play with and develop those muscles so that when writing and cutting later on, their hands do not get tired. Older children, and even some younger ones, can take these

building toys

straws and begin the process of creating. They will use logical reasoning and step by step decision making as they try and try again to get these straws to form their desired goal. This is harder than you think and when you see that your child has acutally made something with these straws be proud!

Fianlly you can take these straws a step further and not only build with them but ask your children to pattern with them, make them in to shapes and challenge them to make three dimensional shapes. Connecta Straws are long term

building toys

that when brought out at different stages can be fun for all ages.

Math Patterns

Math Patterns

It seems that

math patterns

for children would be easy, but it does take some work to get them to understand the order of patterns. Patterns are important and enable children to assign and acknowledge attributes of certain objects. You can pattern colors, shapes, items and even sizes. The practice of patterning items will help children later on understand numbers and functions. Also taking the time to distinguish between certain attributes helps children understand logic, easy logic and more complex logic used later on in proofs.

It is important for a child's learning development to expose them to

math patterns

. This particular pattern box has a lot of items to pattern and items kids find fun to play with. The worms and bugs can be orgnazined in many different ways. There are cards provided that will enable children to follow a given pattern and even continue it.

It is so fun to play with these bugs and worms! Let them enjoy playing with them or even doing some pretend play as they become familiar with their attributes. Take the

math patterns

a step further and ask the children to sort the bugs by color. Sort them by number of legs. Get them to be observant and ask them some other ways to sort the items. Give them chances and opportunities to pattern. It will not only strengthen those skills in their minds but begin the training of their minds to notice details and extend a sequence. That is the basis of a early math. Find how these items fit togehter and carry it further.

This is a great tool for both home and school and definitely will encourage great

math patterns

and great math development as well as some pretend play too! Who knows you may get a bug in your lunch one day - don't be surprised it is bound to happen! Maybe you can get them to pattern a set of bugs each day in your lunch! Shew - that would be awesome! :)

Exercise Activities for Kids

Exercise Activities for Kids

It is very difficult to get your children outside to play when it is really hot or when it is really cold. It may seem that only a few times a year is the weather appropriate for outside play. When children are inside, their activity level can decrease some and even get to the point where they are not exercising much. It is too easy today to set your child in front of a TV or the computer and not provide

exercise activities

for your kids.

I was trying to exercise myself recently and I was trying to do an excercise video. My daughter had so much fun watching me do it and was dying to participate herself but it was just too hard for her and for me frankly. So I decided it may be good to find a way we can both do

exercise activities

together. I have noticed that my child and most children love to jump. They jump all the time. So I thought, one way for us to both exercise is to jump on an indoor trampoline.

It can be done any time of day and since the point of

exercise activities

is to get your heart rate up, put on some fun music and then just jump. Do a running jump, do a slow jump, do a fast jump, jump on one foot or both at the same time. You will find that as you both excercise together that this little time doing something active will keep you both healthy.

This small indoor trampoline is great because it can fold up and be hidden, for those days you just can't do it. It can be risk free too because it has handles and is not high off of the ground outside. It can also help those children who may need a little extra therapy in developing some gross motor skills that enable them to walk or jump well.

This is a great purchase for

exercise activities

and will be good for you and your child, you may even need to get a small adult trampoline so you can join your child in this great form of excericse.

Toys for Kids

Toys for Kids

It is hard to find appropriate

toys for kids

. You want to buy a toy that will last and maybe even last for different seasons of your child's life. You also want to buy toys that will promote learning and take advantage of your child's learning potential through play. You want to also find

toys for kids

that are fun. That is the bottom line really in the kids minds, but did you know that you can find toys that are both fun and educational?

Do not let the fear of finding good

toys for kids

scare you off from buying toys online. You may even wonder, "What do kids like?" Well every kid likes something different but you will be surprised how classic educational toys can meet those needs when chosen correctly for their age group or even chosen with a specific type of toy in mind. Every toy at Inspire Bright Minds includes some educational value. We are working hard every day to include new

toys for kids

and even give you some extra information on how those toys will provide some educational benefit to your children. From imaginary toys to building blocks, toys can be educational. Take some time to browse our site and see if you can find some great educational

toys for kids

that will not only be fun but worth the money for years to come.

Kids Learning Toys

Kids Learning Toys

We all desire for children to enjoy learning. It makes life more interesting and makes school bearable! One way to develop that mindset in our children is to adopt that mindset ourselves. Children tend to follow whatever their parents do, whether spoken or not, your child is watching you. Show them that learning is important and that you enjoy it, then hopefully they will enjoy it too for years to come. One way to do that is to provide

kids learning toys

.

Kids learning toys

are a way to foster a joy of learning in your young children. When providing kids learning toys at an early age, there will not be a preset frustration with letters, numbers or other skills because they have been exposed to it in an enjoyable way. Children will also find success when playing with educational toys. They will learn various language and math skills without even realizing they are learning. These skills will come easily because they were acquired through playing with

kids learning toys

. In turn their minds have been exercised and trained to learn in the midst of playing. When asked about letters and numbers in school, they will find success and familiarity and therefore have confidence in their first experience in school.

It is easy to buy toys and toys that will last but it takes some deliberation and effort to make sure your toys will not only be fun but teach your children as well. Take the time to find

kids learning toys

that teach your children fine motor, language and math skills. Your desire for them to learn is felt and when you take the time to provide an environment of learning in a joyful way and not just with a paper and pencil, children view learning as an exciting adventure. Show your children that you enjoy learning and give them the gift of finding that joy as well.

Development of Language: Sequencing Activities

Development of Language: Sequencing Activities

As your children start to get older and learn the elements of a story, one of the most important things they will learn is how to sequence a story. Sequencing is when you put the events of a story in order. This skill carries over in to many skills concerning language development and story structure.

Some examples of

sequencing activities

are putting things in chronological order, steps of a recipe or instructions, and even life cycles provide a sequential format. Examples of sequencing are seen in life every day. If you have ever seen the cartoon Dora, they do sequencing all the time as Dora has the children repeat the things they will be doing in the order they need to be done in. This skill, of putting events in order, helps with comprehension and helps with breaking large tasks in to small ones. It will also help memory and recollection when children are learning how to recall the sequence of events.

Make it a practice to ask about the sequence of events in your everyday life. Ask your child what they did when they woke up this morning. Take a movie or cartoon they just watched and ask them how it started. Use these sequencing cards to help them visually see a story taking place and teach them how to place them in order. Even take things a step further and ask them why it is important to do things in a certain order. Also encourage them to "predict" what will happen next. What are some major steps in this sequence? All these questions and

sequencing activities

will get their minds working in areas that their teachers will address.

We can not tell what is going on in the minds of little ones, but you can get some tangible items to help see what they are thinking. These

sequencing activities

are a great resource to get a window in to your children's mind and to create comfort in ordering events. When they are comfortable putting events in order, it will be easier for them to follow a step of directions in school too. The order becomes important and these

sequencing activities

can help with that.

Puzzles for Kids

Sound Puzzles: Puzzles for Kids

Kids love puzzles. These Listen and Learn puzzles add a little extra sound to the fun.

Puzzles for kids

can have many different pictures or designs and they are a great source of problem solving and organization. When you add sound to these puzzles, a child can then get immediate affirmation that their matching or sorting has been done correctly.

Not only are the sound puzzles fun for the younger ones, but they are a great teaching tool for older kids too. Younger children can take the Listen and Learn

puzzles for kids

and place the correct piece in the correct spot and get a great joy when they hear the zebra make a zebra sound. (What sounds to zebras make anyway?) As they do this over and over again, confidence in matching shapes, pictures and colors result. Also the sound the animal or transportation vehicles make give their ears a little exercise. Helping them distinguish one sound from another. They are also just plain fun. Give your young child the chance to practice shape and color placement with these fun sound

puzzles for kids

. You may even find that when they do not get it right, they will work and work to get it right and we all know that persistence can't be practiced too much!

Older children who have to see things visually and/or hear things in an auditory manner will appreciate being able to learn the United States with these auditory

puzzles for kids.

The names of the states are said as they place them in the right spot. It is a great way to help those kids who need something a little more than a picture and a book. For auditory learners and visual learners this is a great too. The auditory learner will remember the sounds made as they place the state of Utah where it belongs. The visual learner will remember the shape and location of the sound that they heard. How many of us remember things because we heard them?

These puzzles are a great preschool educational toy for older and younger children. The self-checking and encouragement make these puzzles go a step above other

puzzles for kids

by providing not only a learning environment but a fun repetitive toy that can be used for years to come.

Building Toys: Legos

Building Toys: Legos

Building toys

are great for children of many ages. You will find that many great educational things come from building toys such as legos. First of all legos help develop your child physically. Taking the blocks and putting them together matching the bumps in the block with the holes or groves in the connecting block takes a lot of fine motor movement from your little ones hands. When taking the legos apart and putting them back together again the child is exercising their hands and their pincher fingers to develop muscles for writing. When holding a pen or pencil correctly, you are only using the thumb and the first finger. So, those two fingers and the muscles in the arm need to be exercised so that children are ready and able to write and not get tired when doing so. It is amazing what playing with

building toys

can do!

Not only do

building toys

like legos provide fine motor development exercises but they also allow children to imagine. They take a picture in their head and try to recreate it visually in front of them. They also are able to make changes and plan. Let their imaginations go when they create a house or a street or a castle. They may all look the same to you but not to the child. Stacking and position the blocks on one another is great practice for young children. It takes some time and some mess but encourage your children to play with

building toys

. Not only for fun but for their fine motor muscle development.

Children's Crafts: Play doh

Children's Crafts: Play doh

Believe it or not

play doh

my seem really messy and frustrating but it is a great tool for young children to play with. It helps them develop muscles in their hands that will help them write better and not get tired. You want your child to have good hand muscle development before they reach grade school so that when the teachers are asking them to cut, write and lace things they are physically prepared to do so and will not get tired. If they tend to get tired doing these things school may become frustrating to them.

Give

play doh

and play doh tools to your child and allow them to roll the dough, to pinch it and create things. They will be having a great time and in reality they are "exercising" their hands. They can also exercise their creativity by creating things with play doh. When they ask you to make something with the play doh, encourage them to do it and encourage them to talk through the steps they are taking to make the play doh become an item. The

play doh

tools are great too because they will enable the child to manipulate the doh and to feel different textures as well as create different shapes.

Take the tools and

play doh

a step further and ask the children to make something that starts with the letter A. Also ask them to make an item and then make an item that is bigger or smaller. Have them make three items and organize the items from smallest to largest. Use the different textures in the

play doh

tools and have the children make patterns with them. Patterns can be a hard thing to understand and "feeling" and making the patterns can help the tactile and kinesthetic learners.

Play doh and

play doh

tools are a great toy to have at home and a great item to help children get ready for school. Give it a try, you will start to see their manipulation of the

play doh

get better and better the more they have a chance to play with it! You will like it too - we all know it is hard not to touch it and play with it when it is in front of you. Enjoy!

Teaching Resources

Teaching Resources: Pocket Chart

As you know most educators end up spending a great deal of money to have

teaching resources

in their classroom that will provide a rich learning experience. The frustrating thing is that most teachers do not have the money to spend on a great deal of teaching resources. We here are Inspire Bright Minds, hope to give teachers the chance to not only get some great teaching resources but to help them get them at a great price.

One example of a great teaching resource is the classroom

pocket chart

. They are a great addition to PreK and up classrooms in order to develop language. The ABC pocket chart is great for PreK and K classrooms because not only can the children sort the cards given in many different groups but they can sort the cards given by beginning sounds. They can also look at the words printed on the back of the cards and sort the cards by lowercase letters in to the uppercase letters' pockets.

The Word Families and Blends

Pocket Chart

provide older children with a hands on approach to learning and sorting the right beginning sounds and the end word families. They help with rhyming and again you can use the picture cards for many sorting activites. Each

pocket chart

includes over 200 cards and inlcudes a great teacher's guide.

The Calendar

Pocket Chart

is a great way to display the calendar in your classroom in a way that is manipulative. You can have the children sort the numbers. You can talk about what today is and what yesterday and tomorrow were or are. You can sing songs about the days of the week with the cards labeled as such so that you can use them as sight words. You can also use the numbers to have a number missing and see if they can figure out what it is. There are many activites you can use with the Calendar

Pocket Chart

.

The

pocket chart

are a great teaching resource and should be used in the younger grades to provide a visual as well as a hands on manipulative for the children to grasp language skills as well as mathematical skills.

Imaginary Play: Play Kitchen Toys

Imaginary Play: Play Kitchen Toys

Are pretend play kitchen toys really a necessary preschool educational toy? They seem like a space filler and I wonder if it will just collect dust.

Play Kitchen toys

are not a "necessity" but they are an excellent educational toy to give your young children. You can teach many skills with these toys and yes they will not be used all the time but you will be surprised how often some children really do love to use them. You can use it to encourage imagination, self care, mathematical skills, and manners. Give it a try, if you have room or even if you do not, you can find a play kitchen that will work for your home and your family.

Play kitchen toys

can encourage imagination by giving your child the opportunity to make meals for their pretend friends or lovies. They can also make meals for you and real friends too. They will then use mathematical skills to divide foods up and place kitchen play toys like plates and forks in front of each guest, dividing again. They can even take it a step further and play out a scene with guests arriving, talking through the meal, and cleaning up. These sort of "complete" imaginary experiences train your young ones brain to recognize a beginning, middle and end of a story. Take the mathematical skills a step further and sort the

play kitchen toys

by color or by shape or by use. Maybe even allow for some problem solving and tell your child that they can only use spoons, so what kind of meal can you give your guests since we only have spoons? If they say ice cream say YES - it is just pretend and they are doing great problem solving.

While the imaginary story is taking place when using your

play kitchen toys

, you will get a glimpse into manners and self care that your child is aware of. For example, do the guests wash their hands before they eat? Do they use a napkin? Do they say please and thank you? The nice thing is that if you have been working on these skills with your child, these

play kitchen toys

allow them to put those skills in to practice in a fun way and it allows them to "correct" their guests.

Even when a child is playing with

play kitchen toys

alone, they will be developing their minds in mathematical, imaginative and creative ways. Allow them the chance to play and even though you can't see what is going on in their minds, trust that when the right educational toys are provided, their minds will be developing. Have you noticed that in most good educational facilities for younger children, a kitchen or home-living center is always there! Have one at home too - they will not play with it all the time but they will never get bored of it and it is definitely worth the investment.