Last week marked a milestone – 30 years since I became a child of God. It’s been 30 years since the day when in the midst of build-up for my physical birth-day, my mom read me this book. The King’s Invitation relays the parable Jesus told about a king who sent out invitations to his […]
Art vs. Crafts
photo credit: my sister. Since we just finished up a series on Open-Ended Play, I wanted to share some thoughts my sister had on “Art vs. Craft”. In the early years especially, I’ve traditionally been a huge fan of open-ended art. And I still am. But as she points out ‘craft’ has its place too […]
Delighting in the Days…
I’m ever so thankful for reminders to cherish each day and each season in life. My oldest came down with a stomach bug in the middle of the night which put a kink in our plans for a swim date with their cousins. So we had a quiet ‘at home’ day today. Which really, after […]
Play Silks: A Giveaway!
Well, as we just wrapped up our series on the importance of and how to foster open-ended play with our children, I’m delighted to bring you all an opportunity to bring some play silks into your home!!!! I talked extensively about them and shared examples of how we use them in our home in my […]
Making It Work: Promoting Open-Ended Play
Patriots going into battle. Note the broken golf-club, hockey stick and broomstick that are all standing in as rifles… Who needs play guns, anyways? They’ll improvise! So what now? It is hard to not end up with scripted toys. But I’ve found that this really doesn’t hinder a child when you are encouraging their creativity […]
From Trash to Treasure
(Xander at 3yo enjoying a homemade shield that he asked us to fashion from an egg carton and his lance from an old packing tube.) As we’ve been talking about, encouraging our kids in open-ended play is a great way for them to learn at their own pace as well as develop important creative and […]