Building Blocks for Success & Supporting Cognitive Skills in Preschoolers

The preschool years, ages three to five, are a crucial time for child development. This period acts as a golden "window of opportunity" for shaping young minds. Early cognitive skills built now set up a strong base for later school success and a lifetime of learning. These early abilities help children grasp new ideas faster and solve problems more easily. Cognitive skills for preschoolers cover many areas. They include memory, how children solve problems, and their ability to think critically. Attention span and language growth also play big roles. You can see these skills in action every day. A child remembering a song, figuring out a puzzle, or explaining their favorite toy all show growing cognitive abilities. Nurturing these skills offers many benefits. Children often show improved school performance. They also get better at managing emotions and adapting to new situations. Daycares in Forney, TX , help kids build these foundational tools that help them thrive in all par......

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Inspired a love for Science at home with Tinkerer

  Like all parents, I want to encourage a love of learning in my children and to bring learning into the home. Tinkerer is on a quest to inspire children's creative confidence and give them the right tools to explore Science and Art safely in the home through their monthly STEM boxes.  Founded by two engineers, Stephen and Elaine who are parents themselves, who wanted to help nature the desire for children to learn and grow independently and together Tinkerer was born.  The monthly boxes provide everything your children need to dive into hands-on projects that are educational, fun and challenging. There are three different boxes depending on your children's age, which ensures they are offered projects that are within their capabilities but still stretch their creative thinking.   Wonder boxes for 3-5yr olds, Odyssey for 6-8yr olds and Explore for 9-12yr olds. Each box comes includes a fun theme, quality materials, an educational magazine and step-by-step instru......

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Exploring the SS Great Britain

A few weeks back we were kindly invited to attend a blogging event on the SS Great Britain in Bristol. Needing very little excuse to explore one of our favourite cities which is only an hour away from us we were looking forward to a mini day trip across the border. Having studied in Bristol it's a place I love going back too and there is still so much I want to see and discover about the city as I always had to commute back to Cardiff after each seminar and therefore was always left wanting more. Spike Island and the harbour has been a place I have visited briefly before having gone to an event at the MShed last year and it's a real hub of creativity with a fantastic atmosphere and loads of places to see, eat and enjoy. Our first stop for the day was Brunel's SS Great Britain, which stands impressively in a dry dock next to the harbour and immediately captures your imagination, especially those of children. You are handed a Passenger ticket which allows you retur......

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This Homeschooling Life

So I missed last months Home Schooling round up as we have been away so much over the past month which has been fantastic for learning on the go but has also meant I had fallen a little behind with my monthly update so in this post I will be sharing what we have been learning throughout Feb and March. Exploring Welsh Castles There have been a few changes to our normal routine of late as Baby G is firmly on his way of no longer being a baby but rather a toddler and is very mobile since he started walking at 10.5 months and will be 14 months soon. This has meant that when he used to be happy to sit in his highchair or with some of his toys while we did workbook or crafts is no longer the case. We still try and fit small projects in each day but a lot of our learning has naturally moved outdoors with the change in the seasons as well as Baby G's ever increasing mobility. Saying that we have still been doing a fair amount of water-colour painting as not only does......

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This Homeschooling Life

So this is coming to you a few days later than usual as we are still having some interesting sleeping patterns with our 11month old but for one thing I cannot believe we are already into our second month of the year! I love to look back and reflect on what we have been doing together as a family, the adventures we have been on and what we have learnt. So what did January have in store for us? Well for one we decided to be a little bit more organised this year - we are neither structured or unschooled when it comes to the way we home educate - we simply do what feels right and allow Mr A some control over what he learns, of course with lots of encouragement. We picked up a few things for him over Christmas to help with reading and telling the time and have continued our outdoor adventures despite the constant rain we have had in Wales. Watching the blacksmith at work Our main highlights have included looking for animal foot prints at Dare Valley Park, watching t......

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This HomeSchooling life

This is coming a few days later than usual as Baby G is going through a major developmental stage which has meant he has been keeping me up all night with waking every 30-45mins so this week has meant energy levels have not been as high as normal. But saying that we have still had a lot of fun and have been embracing every dry day thrown at us and keeping cosy indoors doing crafts on those rainy days. As this is the first HomeSchooling update post of the year I thought I would talk more about what we hope to achieve this year especially as we had a sort of break over the festive period from the more formal learning to just enjoying baking, making and seeing friends and family. So what do we have install for Mr A this year ? 1. He is at the age now that introducing some sports as well as learning key skills such as swimming is very much on the agenda. He already does bouldering which he has made some great improvement in over the past few months and have just enrolled him in......

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This Homeschooling Life

As some of you may already know, myself and three other bloggers do a monthly roundup of what Home Schooling or Home Ed looks like to each of us and what we get up to and here are some of the highlights from the last month. It's been a bit slower than usual, with less outdoor adventures due to both the boys coming down with bad colds and coughs (as well as myself) but we are not back on form *well almost* and we have ramped up the Christmas crafting and getting into the festive season.  One of our favourite things from the past month has to be the JacDo Christmas Craft session at Chapter in Cardiff with a few other local bloggers and their kids. The lovely people at JacDo had setup three tables each with a different craft, all perfect for young children to get stuck into and get creative with. First we made sock snowmen filled with rice then painted paper plate wreaths and a simple sowing craft which was Mr A's favourite. For those who don't know what or who Ja......

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This Homeschooling life

Wow how did a whole month fly by so quickly? We have been so busy with the changing of the seasons and have been celebrating everything that Autumn has to offer with most days being spent outside. Half term also happened which means we also have a bit of a break and any "formal" learning went out the window and we did a whole lot more hands on activities during the dry weather We enjoyed pumpkin carving in the Park, worm charming and apple pressing at Forest Farm Nature Reserve as well as Autumn crafts, wild art and being apart of a Spider survey which involved recording all our spider finds as well as coming across some earwigs and snails. Mr A has also shown a big interest in Bird watching and we actually spotted two beautiful Kingfishers over the weekend which was a real highlight Another thing we have enjoyed lately is cooking together, something which Mr A seems to have a love hate relationship with, he is not a big eater and rather fussy and a......

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