Joyful Parenting
Welcome to my blog! I'm MaryAnne, and I write about building a rewarding family life through mindful parenting and educational and creative family activities. Learn more.
Reading Kingdom review. This is a great program to check out if you are looking to teach a child to read. It teaches sequencing, writing, sounds, meaning, grammar, and comprehension. The program adapts to the child playing. There's an awful lot that goes into learning to read! Beyond basic phonics, children need to develop a vocabulary, comprehend a plot, learn grammar, … [Read more...] about A New Way to Learn to Read: Reading Kingdom Review
Being silly with Grandpa. One of my favorite things about being a mom is listening in on my kids' conversations! Here are some kid quotes that made me smile recently: Putting on a fleece hooded sweatshirt with hearts on it: Lily (3 years old): E [a boy at school] has a shirt just like this one! Me: Oh yeah? Lily: Yeah. But it doesn’t have hearts on it. Me: Is it soft like … [Read more...] about Kid Quotes: Just Like Mine
Mixing play dough with rocks, googly eyes, marbles, pattern blocks, and other items is a fairly common occurrence in my house. I love raising creative kids, and letting them combine unusual materials is a great way to encourage creativity. Still, I don’t know that I would have allowed them to combine play dough with Kleenex if it hadn’t been for this particular play dough … [Read more...] about Raising Creative Kids: Mixed Media Play
My kids love making applesauce with their dad! This time they got fancy, with orange-flavored applesauce! This was three-year-old Lily’s first time slicing the apples (with a butter knife) – and she thought that was amazing! Making applesauce is very simple: peel the apples, slice them into chunks, and bring them to a boil in a pot with a little juice. Then let … [Read more...] about Orange-flavored Applesauce
Combining play dough with rocks for creative sensory play is always popular in our house, and this week there was an extra special component because we made pumpkin pie scented play dough using Tinkerlab’s play dough recipe! It made a LOT of gorgeous play dough – plenty to send most of it off for Johnny’s preschool class, and still have a bit left over for … [Read more...] about Learning Laboratory: Creative Sensory Play
