Tag: preschool

Teach Your Child Life Science at Home

Being home from work and school is an important public safety measure during our current pandemic, but it can be rough – for all of us. Kids and adults alike are trying their best to transition from their usual school and work environments to working remotely, from the comfort of their homes… where their TV and all their favorite snacks are… where the couch is comfortable and Lego sets beg to be played with. It can be a real struggle to focus!

We’ve been trying to keep our kids on track with their virtual classrooms, while also entertaining them in quiet times between classwork. The balancing act between parent, employee, home-school teacher, and chef is leaving most of us feeling… well, unbalanced. Fortunately, I’ve found some activities that have successfully entertained (and educated) my younger kids – and it isn’t over in a mere five minutes!

Every Spring, we tend to our vegetable garden. The kids love to help me clean out old dead plants, turn the soil, look for worms – all of it. But this year, our weather hasn’t exactly been cooperative. It’s the middle of April and we still have snow – YIKES! We haven’t been able to shake off our desire to get planting, though, so we started some seeds indoors. This has been great for teaching our sons how plants grow, observing the parts of a plant, and using a small magnifying glass to take a close look at roots and germinating seeds. And it doesn’t stop there!

Sample sheets from How Plants Grow Workbook

I’ve put together a 20 page workbook to go along with this activity. The workbook includes coloring sheets, bilingual vocabulary practice, a Plant Growth Process wheel, cut-and-paste charts, matching games… enough to last a week or so. You’ll be able to teach your child about the parts of a plant, about the growth process, practice reading and writing, solve puzzles, and play games – all while watching it happen in front of them! It’s a hands-on learning experience that is sure to fill in some of the gaps of their remote learning!

You can find the downloadable workbook here in our online store. The material supports bilingual education in English and Korean languages, but can be completed and enjoyed by our monolingual friends, as well!

Stay safe and healthy, friends! We are in this together!

Chopstick Bead Sorting

A classic children’s activity with a twist
Chopstick Bead Sorting Activity for Kids

Here is a great activity that will keep your kids busy for HOURS! It’s a bead-sorting game… with a twist! This activity strengthens your child’s pincer grip, teaches them colors and shapes, can be a great opportunity to boost language-learning, and of course teaches them to sort objects into groups. You can start out simple and build up the challenges as your child gets better at the activity – even my 6 year old loves it!

What you need:
🔹 Colorful plastic beads
🔹 A container for sorting (could be a muffin tin, paper cups, etc)
🔹 Kid’s chopsticks (or even just their fingers!)

What you do:
🔸Pick up one bead at a time
🔸Sort by color, shape, or size
🔸Name each color or shape as you play

Language-Booster:
You can play this game in any language with your child, and in as many as you’d like – it won’t feel like learning, because they are having fun and focusing on the task of moving beads from one container to another. They will want to play over and over again!

When first introducing this activity to my 3-year-old son and niece, we started out simple, only concentrating on how to use the chopsticks and letting them move the beads to whichever cup they wanted. As they got the hang of that, we started sorting the beads by color, naming each out loud in both English and Korean languages. The great thing about this activity: you can add to the challenges, change the sorting criteria, and use with any language you are teaching your child! The possibilities are endless!