Does your child like farms and farm animals? Read these children's books about farms to tie in to nursery songs or a trip to the farm. If you're a parent, there's a good chance you've bleated, moo'd, and baa'd about a thousand times by now. After all, farms and farm animals remain a big hit with kids. They're in every nursery rhyme and preschool curriculum. Your kids probably have a toy, coloring book, or puzzle about farm animals. They even make their way into birthday party themes. And of course, we find them throughout many children's books about farms. Every year, my family and … [Read more...]

Is your child ready to dive into swimming? Here are children's books about swimming, whether your child is excited or scared to swim. Swimming had been a hit or miss with my kids in the early days. We could go from one week of splashing and making bubbles in the pool to outright fear of dipping their toes in the water. They liked splashing around and playing, but still hesitated letting go of the sides of the pool. How can you ease kids into the idea of swimming? As they grew older and had more opportunities to swim, splashing in the water felt more familiar. I enrolled them in swim … [Read more...]

Instill the value of growing gardens, taking care of nature, and nourishing the soil! Here are the best children's books about gardening. Over the last few years, my family and I have been experimenting with gardening in our backyard. We're "serious" enough to even get raised beds and tick off all the right requirements to actually grow food (sun, soil, season, and spacing). Before that, we've had many dismal fails, from growing one measly tomato out of four plants to seeing all our kale seedlings get munched to the ground. But we've also had our wonderful surprises, like eating snow … [Read more...]

Learn how to make math fun with picture books! Discover the best math books for kids — perfect for kindergarten and elementary school children. My kids have been asking about math concepts I've had to explain in creative ways. When one asked the answer to 3 x 5, I gave the example of three kids jumping five times. Fractions are explained with dividing a pizza into slices. Even and odd numbers are compared to sharing between the twins and whether they have equal pieces or if one has more than the other. They compare how many more "heads" they need to be as tall as me or my husband and … [Read more...]