Mountains of toys may sound like a dream, but too many toys can be problematic for your little player. In the same way that a cluttered office makes it hard for you to focus on your work, too many toys can be distracting and overwhelming for your child. Despite overflowing toy bins across the country, science says that less is better for playthings. Having access to fewer toys allows kids to spend more quality playtime with individual toys instead of jumping from toy to toy, leading to more focused playtime with each toy, improved concentration skills, and more creativity in the way kids play.

You may be asking yourself, how many are too many? Not including a favorite stuffy, experts say setting out three to five toys at a time is the right number for infants and toddlers. Research published in Psychology Today indicates that toddlers presented with fewer toys (four in the case of the study) experienced more engaged, creative, and varied playtime with those toys than a group presented with more toys.

This doesn’t mean you need to get rid of your tot’s toys, though! Instead, consider rotating your toy stash, swapping the current set of several toys for another set when your little one seems ready for a new stimulus. Toy rotation may sound like it requires a lot of tracking, but it’s simple. Start by going through your little one’s toys and tossing anything that’s broken or missing pieces. Set aside anything you’d like to donate, then see what’s left. Choose up to five items, varying by type – for example, one doll, one puzzle, a set of blocks, and a dump truck. Place these in your playroom and put the others away in a closet or another out-of-sight storage spot. When your kiddo appears bored with the current set of toys, put them away and choose another five. You can also swap individual toys if there’s something your child just doesn’t seem to want to play with.

In addition to promoting more focused playtime, which enables your child to better reap the intended benefits of each toy, rotating toys also makes clean up easier and clears your playroom of distracting clutter! Give toy rotation a try and watch as your little one engages with the toys on hand. And remember, your toddler can turn anything into a toy, so don’t hesitate to set out metal pots and wooden spoons to bang, plastic cups and bowls to stack, laundry baskets to hide beneath, sheets and chairs to turn into forts, and TP tubes to turn into bugles. The fewer toys your child has on hand, the more creative they’ll get with their playtime.

Did you know? Infants and toddlers explore their worlds using their senses, particularly their mouths and hands. Touching and feeling new textures and objects builds your child’s brain by building new nerve connections. Sensory play is used for playtime activities that engage the senses and encourage your child to explore using their senses. The more sensory play experiences you can provide for your child, the better! Why?

1. Sensory Play Develops Complex Thinking Abilities

We mentioned that sensory experiences build brain connections. The more of these connections your child builds, the better their ability to engage in complex thinking, reasoning, logic, and problem solving later on.

2. Sensory Play Builds Confidence

With no one way to explore, sensory play experiences enable kids to do things their way. This lack of “right” or “wrong” and “correct” or “incorrect” outcomes is a great way to build a child’s self-esteem simply by letting them “do.”

3. Sensory Play Builds Fine Motor Skills

Exploring with their hands and fingers provides the practice little ones need to build fine motor strength and coordination. The more frequently they repeat an activity, such as pouring, pressing, scooping, sifting, pinching, squeezing, etc., the more developed those fine motor skills will become.

4. Sensory Play Builds Language Skills

Sensory play provides the perfect opportunity to talk to your child, reinforcing language patterns and introducing new vocabulary. Are they touching something smooth, scratchy, slippery, or rough? Ask your little one questions as they play – what does the object feel like?

5. Sensory Play is Calming

Engaging their senses is a wonderful way to distract and calm kids who are agitated or upset. You can engage multiple senses with a sensory bin full of things to touch and feel, play soft music, even spray a soothing scent in the air.

Wondering how to get started? Luckily, offering sensory-stimulating activities is fairly simple. Start with a large plastic bin or tray, then decide whether to use a base like sand, mud, or water and add small objects for your child to discover or create a bin full of objects to explore, like pom poms, buttons, corks, or beans (remember that children need to be supervised when exploring objects that fit in their mouths!). Consider a themed bin, say insects, for example. You might start with a base of dark-colored beans add plastic insect figurines, a scooper, a net, and a plastic jar. See if your little one can use the tools to scoop up a specific bug (can you find the green one?) and place it in the jar. Or go with a beach-themed bin full of sand, shells, shovels, and cups. You’ll be amazed how long your toddler can engage with these simple setups!

You may have heard of social-emotional learning or SEL. But what IS it, exactly? SEL skills help people recognize and identify emotions – both their own and other people’s – and are the foundation for the decisions they make for themselves and in relationships. Experts break SEL into five areas: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness. Strength in these areas translates into an emotionally healthy child with a positive outlook, better behavior, and better grades who makes smart choices and has more friends. Sounds great, right? 

While many schools incorporate social-emotional learning into their curricula, parents can support SEL learning at home. Even very young children can absorb the ideas behind SEL and begin to incorporate them into their everyday routines. Below are five concepts that support SEL learning and easy ways to introduce them at any age:

1. Gratitude - Being thankful for the good things in their lives, no matter how small, helps kids learn how to focus on the positive and introduces self-reflection. You can model this behavior to your toddler by commenting on the things that make you happy, from a snowflake on your nose to a hug from a loved one. Talk about how it made you feel and how grateful you are for that moment. Ask preschoolers to share the things that make them happy – encourage depth in their answers with prompts like what food you love to eat, who is a favorite friend, what can your body do that’s amazing? Kindergarteners can draw a picture each night to accompany their gratitude routine, and older kids might like to journal their ideas.

2. Peace - Little kids have big feelings. Learning to calm themselves when they’re feeling scared, angry, or frustrated is a key SEL skill. Pay attention to the things that soothe your sweetie and have them easily accessible when things start to go south. Maybe your little one gets lost in picture books, finds quiet music soothing, or feels calmer when squeezing dough or squishing slime. Many parents swear by the glitter jar – a water-tight jar full of water and glitter. Give it a shake and share that your child’s thoughts might be flying all over, like the glitter. Encourage them to take a deep breath and watch as the glitter – and their thoughts – settles. Whatever the method, understanding that there are tools to calm their feelings and knowing where to find them and how to use them are social-emotional skills that will serve your child well as they grow.

3. Thoughtfulness - Thinking of others is a great way to build social awareness. Thank or compliment a favorite friend or family member in front of your young child and then share with them how much you appreciate that person and that you wanted to make sure they knew. Ask your older child who makes them happy and encourage them to reach out with a picture, a letter (you can write the words for them), or a phone call. You also might ask who your child thinks might feel happy to hear from them and do the same.

4. Awareness - Identifying their own emotions and recognizing them in others is a key SEL skill. You can help little ones learn about feelings simply by naming them. “You look upset!” or “That boy on the swing looks so happy!” or “The girl who lost her balloon is crying. She must feel very sad.” Point out characters expressing different emotions in books and on TV. Ask your older child to look around and guess how they think people are feeling based on their faces and body language. Play a game of charades and see if your kids can guess how you’re feeling based on your movements and facial expressions. Act out different scenarios with your kids – a child who gets a new puppy, for example, or a child who lost a favorite stuffie.

5. Resolution - Problem-solving skills are a biggy! You might be inclined to take the easy way out when you’re playing with your kiddo, but don’t. If you want more time with a toy, explain to them that you’d like one more turn, and then you will pass it over. If you want to play with the toy they’re using, ask if they could take one more turn and then share it with you. If they want your toy, offer something similar. Modeling possible solutions to common problems lays the foundation for future problem-solving. You will likely still need to intervene when it comes time to play with others. Still, your child will be used to hearing and accommodating reasonable solutions and will eventually be able to suggest them on their own.

There are so many ways to teach positive social-emotional health, and they all begin with you! Model good behavior, talk about your feelings and actions, and support your child as they grow into healthy, well-adjusted people!

A special day designed to celebrate friendship, love, and kindness, Valentine’s Day is the perfect way to promote social-emotional learning at home! Below are three ways to incorporate SEL into your child’s Valentine’s Day activities:

1. Think of Your Friends - Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love and kindness, not exclusion or hurt feelings, so talk to your child about WHY it’s important to give a Valentine to every child in their class. If there are some kids your child would rather not celebrate, this is also a great chance to talk about why your child feels that way, make some suggestions for resolutions, or address any problems. 
2. Think of Your Family - Spend some time talking to your child about each of your family members. Ask what your child likes best about them and see if they have any ideas for making specific members feel special. Maybe they could draw a special picture, write a letter (you can do the writing), share their particular thoughts about that person, bake a special treat, or plan an outing to do something that person enjoys.
3. Think of Others - Valentine’s Day isn’t just about love – it’s about kindness, too! Is there something kind your child could do for a neighbor, teacher, or other community members to make them happy on Valentine’s Day? Could you bake and deliver cookies to your neighbors, rake leaves from their lawn, thank the mailman who delivers your cards, or paint a heart-shaped rock for a favorite teacher?

With a little bit of extra work, you can turn Valentine’s Day into a social-emotional celebration. How will you show your love on Valentine’s Day?

Can you believe it is already the 100th day of school? This is an exciting time in the elementary classroom! Whether your student is in-person, virtual, or hybrid, this is still a celebration of academic achievement. Take a look at these activities that will help celebrate your student's 100th day!

Math

In the elementary years, developing basic numeracy skills is a critical component of math instruction. With that in mind, it’s easy to see how the 100th day of class is a great opportunity to test those skills in a fun and exciting ways. Here are just a few examples:

• Count 100 with Snap Cubes! Easy for little hands to connect and twist apart. Great for counting to 100 by ones and tens, grouping, and one-to-one correspondence.
• The Hundred Activity Mat is a great hands-on math tool that will get all your students movin’ and groovin’ with math!
• Count to 100 with Money Activity Set 2. Realistic bills and coins will help your child learn how to add, subtract, and make changes.
• Estimation Station. Challenge your kid's estimation skills with this fun estimation station math invitation. 
• Sing, move, dance, and count your way to 100 with these 6 YouTube videos.

Gym

Get kiddos up and moving with 100 themed activities! Let's get moving:

• Get the whole body moving with 100 jumping jacks or 100 giant steps around the house or even outside.
• 100 Days of School workout. Enjoy a fun workout for you and your kiddos on the 100th day of school!

Language Arts

Incorporate reading and language arts activities that center on this all-important number with these ideas:

• Read, write, and sort 100 words! Students can play independently to test their skills or pair up to compete against a partner, drawing words and using them in a sentence.
• Incorporate a “100 days”–themed book into your daily read-aloud time to practice comprehension skills while counting to 100. Check out these recommended book lists from Apples4theteacher.com and This Reading Mama for a few ideas.

Writing

The opportunities that this day presents to test your students’ writing skills! Try one of these activities with your students:

• Have kids draw pictures and/or write answers to questions like, “What would you do with $100?” “How could you take care of 100 puppies?” “What if you were 100 feet tall? or “What will the world be like when you’re 100 years old?” Let each student choose which question to answer.
• Write out 100 sight words with Sight Words Swat!

STEM

There are tons of fun STEM challenges that inspire critical thinking for your kiddos. Check out these great examples:

• Code with Botley 2.0! Challenge your little coder to build a coding sequence with 100 steps.
• Use 100 pieces of Gears! Gears! Gears!^® Movin' Monkeys^™ Building Set to build a moving jungle playground.
• Weigh-in on 100. Use a classroom scale to determine the weight of 100 dried beans, 100 counters, 100 pennies, or anything else.
• Build a cup tower. Keep things interesting by tasking your students with building the tallest tower, or make it a speed challenge by timing your learners. See if anyone successfully uses 100 cups.

Looking for more ways to celebrate the 100th day of school? You can find all of these ideas (and more) on our 100 Days of School - Virtual Celebration Pinterest Board and It’s the 100th Day of School Blog!

Do you have a child who loves small world play? Small worlds are fantastic for nurturing children's imagination from a young age. This kind of play provides them with an opportunity to explore new materials, act out scenarios from real life, build language, practice social skills, and gain an understanding of the world. Small world play is also great to do independently or in a group. After the small world play is over, build up early sorting and critical thinking skills as kiddos sort and match! The opportunities for building new skills with these Mini Must-Haves!

Your little love is about to become a big kid! They’re likely heading off to kindergarten soon, and you won’t believe the progress they’ll make this year. From social-emotional growth to academic learning and more advanced coordination, your kids will soon be skipping, hopping, writing, and even reading a few words! While kids develop at their own pace, below is a list of new skills many five-year-olds will acquire over this exciting year:

Social-Emotional Skills

As your kindergartner continues to assert their independence, they’ll become better and more enthusiastic helpers. Let them pitch in wherever you can, even if it means a bit more work for you after the fact. Over the next year, your handy helper will get even better at:

• Following directions (they might even be excited to do so!)
• Helping with chores like setting the table, sweeping the floor, or washing (non-breakable) dishes
• Knowing the difference between fantasy and reality
• Doing things themselves, like getting dressed (YES!), eating, and using the bathroom.
• Sitting still and listening for 15 minutes

Language Skills

At this age, your child may become quite the chatterbox. Their speech is likely to be clear, their vocabularies are extensive, and their descriptions are becoming more vivid. They’ll also probably learn to:

• Match the beginning and ending sounds of words to the appropriate letters
• Use correct grammar most of the time (with some funny mistakes)
• Use the correct tenses – past, present, future
• Use the correct pronouns – he, his, they, theirs, etc
• Answer and talk on the phone

Cognitive Skills

This year, many five-year-olds will enter kindergarten, where their social, emotional, and academic skills will blossom beyond belief. Some of the things your little one might master this year include:

• Drawing and cutting out simple shapes
• Using relational words like under, over, and next to
• Writing upper and lowercase letters, words, name
• Adding and subtracting numbers under five (practice with cookies – it’s highly effective!)
• Reading several sight words

Physical Skills

While fine motor skills take longer to develop, your five-year-old’s gross motor skills will grow by leaps and bounds (literally) this year! Below are a few of the strides your child may make over the next year or so:

• Balancing on one foot for a few seconds with their eyes closed
• Hopping on one foot, skipping, and even jumping rope
• Using a fork, butter knife, and spoon correctly
• Zipping their zipper (hooray!)
• Tying their shoes

Your big kid will learn so much in school, and you can reinforce that learning at home! Play games together, count the cars you pass on the street, find the letter “O” in the stop sign, and read, read, and then read some more. But be sure to make plenty of time for play, movement, and snuggles. You can also track your child’s milestones by age with the CDC’s mobile milestone app!

Your three-year-old will always be your baby, but they’re learning and growing by leaps and bounds, and there’s so much you can do to help nurture their natural development! While children develop at their rate and mastering things a bit earlier or later than others is common, below is a list of social-emotional, language, cognitive, and physical milestones many kids achieve by the time they turn four (and, hence, the things they’re working on when they’re three).

Social-Emotional Skills

Your little love bug is starting to become less self-centered and more aware of the people around them, showing affection, concern, empathy, and a range of other emotions. As their sense of self and self-confidence grows, they may be becoming more independent. By the time they turn four, they may also be able to:

• Mimic you, other family members, and friends
• Take turns when playing games or using toys
• Make eye contact when communicating
• Play on their own for 10+ minutes
• Begin to separate more easily from parents or caregivers
• Recognize and name different feelings, such as happiness, silliness, sadness, and fear

Language Skills

Being able to communicate verbally with your child is an exciting milestone! With a vocabulary hovering between 250-500 words and blossoming grammatical skills, you (and those around you) should be able to understand about 75% of what your three-year-old is telling you. By the time they turn four, your child may also be able to:

• Follow instructions with two or three steps, such as “Please get your shoes and meet me at the front door.”
• Name several colors and basic shapes, including circles, squares, and rectangles.
• Recognize several letters
• Use pronouns (such as it, me, my, you, your, she, he, and we), the past tense, and plural words
• Speak in full sentences of 4-6 words and carry on a conversation using 2-3 sentences at a time
• Tell stories (they may be silly!)

Cognitive Skills

It’s tough to say who feels prouder when a child masters a new skill – the child or the parent! Three-year-old minds are working overtime, observing, practicing, and conquering all kinds of amazing feats. By the time they turn four, many three-year-olds can:

• Engage in imaginative pretend play
• Complete a 3-to-4 piece puzzle
• Build a tower of 6 blocks or more
• Draw a line and circle and begin to draw people (they will probably look more like tadpoles)
• Count to three and begin to recognize quantities, such as one cookie, two cookies, or three cookies
• Sort and match items that are the same or different and compare items by size or color

Physical Skills

If only we could bottle the energy of a three-year-old – it seems they’re always ready to hit the park or playground, race to the corner, or jump off a step. By the time they turn four, many three-year-olds are also able to:

• Pedal a tricycle
• Kick, throw, and catch a ball
• Hop on one foot
• Balance on one foot for 5+ seconds
• Hold a pencil using a tripod (3 fingers) or quadrupod (4 fingers) grip

As we said above, children develop at their own pace, mastering some skills quickly and requiring more practice with others. The more practice they get – and the more support they feel from you – the more confident they will feel as they learn and grow. If you’d like to track your child’s milestones by age, consider downloading the CDC’s mobile milestone app!

Four-year-olds are so much fun! Becoming more independent by the minute, fours are generally super social and extra energetic. They’ll probably begin to push the boundaries a bit this year, though, and will likely give up on napping (sorry, Mom). They’ll also benefit from time away from parents and caregivers as they prepare to enter Kindergarten next year. Below is a list of other social-emotional, language, cognitive, and physical skills you may see emerge this year (but remember, kids progress at their speeds and may pick up these skills earlier or later!):

Social-Emotional Skills

Your baby is officially a preschooler now, learning to identify and express their emotions appropriately, with words rather than emotions. Other exciting social, emotional skills your four-year-old will likely learn this year include:

• Approaching new experiences with excitement
• Preferring playing with friends than alone (and can take turns and cooperate most of the time)
• Sharing information about things they’re interested in
• Role-playing mom or dad during pretend playtime
• Clearly expressing a thought or idea

Language Skills

Look out! With an average vocabulary of up to 1,600 words, your four-year-old has plenty to say! Fours are becoming much more communicative, using longer, clearer sentences, singing songs, playing word games, even reciting short poems! Here are some other language skills your four-year-old may acquire this year:

• Speaking fluently and enough to be understood by strangers
• Telling a story about something that happened to them
• Singing a simple song from memory… Oh, the wheels on the bus go…
• Answering questions beginning with who, what, where, when, why, how many…
• Playing simply rhyming games (cluck says the duck!)

Cognitive Skills

Fours are building the foundation for future learning, practicing shapes, letters, numbers, counting, and attempting to write and draw. By the time most kids start Kindergarten (usually around age five), they’ll:

• Know their full name and maybe their phone number
• Recognize letters, numbers, and signs
• Count 10 or more objects
• Draw a person with 4-6 body parts (head with mouth and eyes, body with arms and legs)
• Understand comparative terms like big/small, short/tall, same/different, empty/full, etc.

Physical Skills

It may feel like your four-year-old is in constant motion, running, jumping, climbing, hopping, and hiding all day long. In addition to honing their gross motor skills, this year, they’ll also be refining key fine motor movements that allow them to dress and feed themselves (hooray). Other physical skills your little one will be working on this year include:

• Buttoning and unbuttoning their clothing
• Using childsafe scissors
• Running faster and climbing higher than they did at three
• Balancing on one foot for 3 seconds
• Walking a “tightrope”
• Climbing stairs with no support

Remember that kids develop at different speeds, so don’t worry if it’s taking your little one a little longer to master any of the skills above. You can support their development by practicing these things at home, in a fun way – and you can track your child’s milestones by age with the CDC’s mobile milestone app!