Tucked into the lower level of the Casa de Balboa Building on the Prado in Balboa Park is the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. Don’t let the basement entrance fool you, at 27,000 sq. ft., it is the largest such indoor model train exhibit in North America, and one of the largest in the world.

Trains have been an interest in our house for a long time. My son fell in love with Thomas the Tank engine when he was about two and from there he dove into all things trains. By 3 he could tell you not just the name and type of every engine on the island of Sodor, but also everything from how a diesel engine worked to how fast a bullet train could fly down it’s rails. Whether you have a Thomas the Tank engine fan or a grandparent with a lifelong love of model trains or someone somewhere in between, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum has something for everyone.

Also Read: In Depth Look at Balboa Park for Families

San Diego Model Railroad Museum

If you have a train fan in your family, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum is not to be missed. It is wonderful for all ages – from toddlers all the way through grandparents. All train enthusiasts are welcome.

Basic Information:

San Diego Model Railroad Museum
1649 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101

Check the website for current hours and pricing. Right now (Summer 2021) they are only open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays 11am – 4pm. Note: there is a military discount and the SD Model Railroad Museum is included if you have the Balboa Explorer Pass.

Website: https://www.sdmrm.org/

Tips for Visiting with Kids

• Come early. Like all things, it is less crowded the earlier you go. There was a small line when we arrived shortly before opening but once inside, even on a summer day, it didn’t feel overly crowded.
• If you have kids over about 7 years old, I highly recommend the scavenger hunt. You can pick it up just inside the entrance, after you’ve paid. There is a little stand in front of the end of the first exhibit when printed scavenger hunts. It helped my kids slow down and really look at all the incredibly detailed miniature worlds.
• Bathrooms are located outside the entrance, down the hall from the Model Railroad Museum. I had my kids try before we entered.
• If you’re there with smaller kids who don’t have the attention span to check out every single inch of the museum, make sure you don’t miss the outside area with the tram and the toy train room. Both are at the back of the museum.
• In the toy train room Thomas runs around the bottom of one of the exhibits. He’s the perfect height for tots and there’s a button you can take turns pushing to make him go.
• The whole museum is very kid friendly with interactive elements and steps for kids to get up higher for a better view.

Trains of all sizes. Fantastic details in the scenes around them. Interactive elements. Enthusiastic employees and volunteers. It is a really fun place to visit.

Terrific Train Ideas for Kids Who Love Trains

When my son was a preschooler he could not get enough of trains. We read all the train books. We rode all the nearby trains. He toddled around in his Thomas the Tank Engine boots and train engineer hat everywhere we went. If you have a kid in this phase, then a visit to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum is perfect, but what about when you get home? Here are some of our favorite ways to extend train play and learning after a fun field trip like visiting SDMRM.

Ideas from San Diego Model Railroad Museum

1. The San Diego Model Railroad Museum has a special page on their website for kids. It has storytime videos you can watch, coloring pages to print and more.
2. Thomas Fans! There is also a Thomas Page on their website that allows you to explore the Island of Sodor and More.

Literacy Activities

3. Read books about trains. This Ultimate List of Picture Books about Trains from My Storytime Corner is a great place to start.

4. Alphabet Train from Teach Beside Me

5. Freight Train Name Craft from Clare’s Little Tots

6. DIY Foam Train for Easy Bathtime Fun and Learning from Bambini Travel (also works with numbers!)

Math Activities

7. Train Carriage Counting Game from Rainy Day Mum

8. Transportation I Spy and Graph Printable from School Time Snippets

9. Chocolate Train Cookies from Inspiration Laboratories

10. Geometric Shapes Train from Mama Smiles

11. Train Track Card Game for Preschoolers from Preschool Powol Packets

Science, Technology and Engineering Activities

12. Transportation Playdough Mat from The Moments at Home

13. Transportation Sand and Water Play from My Bored Toddler

14. Fingerprint Train Ornament for Kids from The Educators’ Spin On It

Art & Fine Motor Activities

15. Freight Train Drawing Prompts from My Storytime Corner

16. Painting with Trains on Canvas by Play Trains

17. Build a Train from School Time Snippets

18. Train-Themed Unwrapping by Craftulate

19. Transportation Connect the Dots by Craftulate

Movement Activities

20. Easy DIY Paper Train Table for Kids from Toddler Approved

21. Polar Express Storytime with Yoga Routine from My Storytime Corner

You May Also Like:
50+ Kid Friendly Things to do in San Diego

Christmas is a magical time of year. I am a bit Christmas obsessed. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays so I never jump ahead, BUT the moment Thanksgiving is over we dive head first into Christmas. Therefore, with homeschooling my Fourth Graders, Christmas is taking over that area of life as well.

Here are our Homeschool Christmas Plans…

affiliate links may be included below.

Christmas Math

• Read Christmas Farm and play Grow Tree Farm Game from Math Geek Mama.
• 12 Days of Christmas Math Word Problems from TpT
• Make Santa Coordinates Pictures from TpT
• Christmas Math Games from TpT
• Bake Christmas Cookies (also relates to Science and Social Studies)

Christmas ELA

• Read Aloud a Chapter of How Winston Delivered Christmas by Alex T Smith each day. This book is so much fun. It is a story with a chapter for every day of Advent. It also has activity ideas throughout the book.
• Read: Best Christmas Pagent Ever
• Read The Polar Express and listen for metaphors and similes
• Compare and Contrast Traditional Christmas tales.
• Write our own Christmas story using the general structure from Write Shop.
• Watch Christmas movies once a week for our Brave Writer Movie Nights.
• Christmas Madlibs or do this Cookie Madlibs from TpT
• Roll a Christmas Story on TpT
• Christmas Vocabulary Pages from TpT

Christmas Social Studies

Christmas is different all around the world. We’ve been exploring different world cultures this year and in December we are going to learn about how different cultures celebrate Christmas. We are going to cookie cookies from around the world including some from the The World of Cookies for Santa book by M. E. Furman.

Here are some more Christmas traditions from around the world to try:

German Christmas Traditions:

• Advent Calendars : here’s a piece on the history of German advent calendars in case you’re curious.
• St Nicholas Day which is on December 6 this year.
• Advent Wreath
• Christmas Tree Pickles
• Sing German Christmas Songs like Silent Night

French Christmas Traditions:

• Try bûche de Noël, a chocolate sponge cake log

Irish & English Christmas Traditions:

• The day after Christmas Day, St. Stephen’s Day (known as Boxing Day in the UK and some other countries), is also very important in Ireland. In both countries, football matches and horse racing meetings are traditionally held on St. Stephen’s Day.

Italian Christmas Traditions

• One of the most important ways of celebrating Christmas in Italy is the Nativity crib scene. Using a Nativity scene to help tell the Christmas story was made very popular by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 (Assisi is in mid-Italy).
• Epiphany is also important in Italy. On Epiphany night, children believe that an old lady called ‘Befana’ brings presents for them. The story about Befana bringing presents is very similar to the story of Babushka.
• Make: Penettone Recipe:

Mexican Christmas Traditions

• From December 16th to Christmas Eve, children often perform the ‘Posada’ processions or Posadas. Posada is Spanish for Inn or Lodging. We’ll be reading Tomie dePaola’s book about Posada and acting it out if my kids are interested.
• One game that is often played at Posada parties is piñata. A piñata is a decorated clay or papier-mâché jar filled with sweets and hung from the ceiling or tree branch.

Christmas STEM

• Bake different Christmas cookies every week for our Poetry Tea Time. We’ve been baking and cooking a lot this year. We’ll be focusing on Christmas cookies through around the world.
• Build a Nativity Scene with Legos. There’s a Nativity Scene Lego Kit or you can challenge your kids to create their own with the pieces you already have.
• Cook our Raddish Kids Seasons Eatings kit.
• Grow Candy Cane Crystals with these printables.
• Code Christmas songs on Scratch

Christmas Music and Art

• Learn Christmas songs on the piano and recorder. My kids are beginners so these will be very basic songs.
• Christmas Music Theory lessons from My Fun Piano Studio
• Christmas Music Listening Worksheet from TpT
• Read Aloud Revival Christmas drawing lessons.
• Play Christmas Pictionary
• Deep Space Sparkle Reindeer or Santa art lesson.
• Virtual Field Trip to see the Nutcracker and do related art and dance activities.
• Put on a Christmas Show via zoom for our Grandparents. The kids will perform their piano and recorder pieces and read aloud their Christmas stories.

Christmas PE

• Christmas Decoration Scavenger Hunt walk around our neighborhood.
• Use Christmas brain breaks to create Christmas themed circuit workout.
• Go for a walk in Balboa Park to look for signs of Christmas

You May Also Like:
10 Christmas Adventures for Kids

Harry Potter has been an obsession in our house for over a year. My twins hit that golden age where their attention span and interests seemed to align perfectly with the Harry Potter series.

Whenever we take a long drive in the car I love to find audio books to help pass the time. We started listening to the first book on our spring break road trip down the coast of California and then continued them off and on until our Iceland vacation. What I was most nervous about for our trip to Iceland was the amount of time we would be in the car, but I shouldn’t have worried. We spent so many hours listening to Jim Dale regale us on the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends. Before we knew it, it was time to pop out of the car for another hike or waterfall or other incredible sight.

affiliate links are included in this post. thanks for your support.

That is how we read Harry Potter. We listened to all the books together on Audible – this is the kind of thing you save those credits for! – but you can also get a CD version (It’s rather pricey so if you can share it with someone that would be great!) if using a CD player works better with your kids.

I can’t recommend the audiobooks enough. Jim Dale does a truly fantastic job narrating the books. I’ve read them all several times and I still get completely immersed in the audiobooks.

Harry Potter Unit Round Up

My daughter in particular fell in love with Harry Potter. She loved the characters, the magic, the fascinating creatures – everything. And so, because I love a good interest driven project, we dove into all things Harry Potter.

Below are the best things we have tried. Many of them we will be repeating soon as we once again celebrate Harry Potter’s birthday at the end of July.

Booklist

The first few are quite obvious, but we have enjoyed several additional Harry Potter themed books that weren’t on my radar prior to doing this unit so I’ve included links below.

• Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
• First Three Books – Illustrated Form (my daughter loves these the most!)
• Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire: The Latest Illustrated Book – was just released in the Fall of 2019.
• The Unofficial Ultimate Harry Potter Spellbook
• A Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts
• Calling All Witches! The Girls Who Left Their Mark on the Wizarding World

Literacy Activities

• Read the books and supporting material.
• Write with a quill. We have this one and it makes all writing (letters, notes, journaling) more magical.
• DIY Harry Potter Book of Spells from Inspiration Laboratories
• Make a Magical Journal for Spells and Fantastical Beasts from STL Motherhood
• Would You Rather Printable Game from Kitchen Counter Chronicle
• Printable Word Scramble and Word Search from Artsy Fartsy Mama

Art Activities

• DIY Wand from Me and My Merbaby
• and another Harry Potter Wand Craft from Red Ted Art
• “Feather” Quill Craft from STL Motherhood
• Edible Wizard Crafts from Organized 31

STEM Activities

• No Prep Quidditch Multiplication and Division Game from the WANDerson World of Mr Swenson
• Play a wizards chess tournament or other Harry Potter games.
• Wingardium Leviosa Experiment from STEAM Powered Family
• DIY Harry Potter Slime from Kimspired DIY
• 12 Harry Potter Bath Bombs from STEAM Powered Family
• Harry Potter Wands STEM Project from STEAM Powered Family

Cooking Recipes

• Nimbus 2000 Broomsticks from Ruffles and Rainboots
• Butterbeer Fudge from STEAM Powered Family OR
  Madam Rosmerta’s Butterbeer Fudge from Totally the Bomb
• Have a Harry Potter Tea ideas from Lara Molettiere
• Sorting Hat Cupcakes from Thimble and Twig
• Edible Wands from The Nerds Wife
• Harry Potter Dragon Egg Cake Balls from Nerdy Mom
• Vegan Butterbeer from Nerdy Mamma

Celebrate Harry Potter’s Birthday on July 31

Super Cute Birthday Party Ideas from Buggy and Buddy plus add these Harry Potter Party Game ideas from East Coast Mommy Blog
DIY Easy Owl Pinata from Red Ted Art

Get More Unit Ideas Here

The garden seems like the perfect place to start when you are thrown into homeschooling in early Spring. My kids, like millions of other kids, were sent home from school on a Friday in mid-March with no real return date in sight.

Admittedly, I have an advantage here. I have a Masters’ degree in Education. I’m licensed to teach third grade. And I’ve homeschooled them before, just not recently.

That does NOT mean this is easy. Nope, even for me.

My kids did come home with various recommended readings and websites to spend time on, but that’s never been my style of teaching. I think to be outside. I like to get our hands a little dirty. I like to turn the pages of a real hard book.

There has definitely been a huge adjustment here despite all of my supposed preparation for this kind of situation. It’s a life adjustment having us all at home. It’s finding a new routine and remembering that my expectations are different than school’s. It’s trying to be flexible.

It’s a work in progress.

What is working is loving Spring. Here is our unit on Gardening for Third Graders (although it could easily be adjusted for younger or older grades as well).

In the Garden Unit

My kids love gardening so it is something we do every Spring even though I have yet to successfully keep a plant alive on my own. They seem to have inherited a green thumb that perhaps skipped a generation.

Tying their interest in gardening and plants into our learning seemed like a great way to start our Spring homeschooling quarantine adventure. It encourages their interest, it gets us outside, and it would hopefully make learning in this new, uncertain time more enjoyable.

Field Trips / Adventures:

These are few and far between these days. However! We are permitted to get outside for exercise so we have been going on daily walks and there is a little garden of flowers around the corner from us in a public space. Here are things you can do in a public garden or while observing flowers in your neighborhood (while maintaining proper distance of course!)

Watch me talk more about Flower Hunting with Kids on YouTube

• Bring cameras and take photos
• Bring sketchpads and draw
• Bring a flower guide and try to label the kinds of flowers

Having a mission and a tool to use on our walks has always been effective for helping my kids slow down and look more closely at their environment on walks.

When we’ve done Garden units in the past we’ve gone to Botanic Gardens or visited nurseries, which we can’t do right now. But we do have these lovely flowers in a public space around the corner from us and that’s just enough of an adventure to encourage them to look closely and get excited about gardening.

You May Also Like: Butterflying Nature Walk with Extension Ideas

Literacy

• Read THANK YOU, GARDEN and then Write Your Own Poem mirrors the language of this text. How would you describe your garden?
• Choral Reading Poetry about Gardens and Caterpillars, etc. We read the poem Caterpillars by Aileen L. Fisher from a poetry book we have but here are a bunch of other options.
• Cursive Pages from PAGE A DAY. My kids are cursive obsessed this year so they found these printables (see image below) super fun. (A Page A Day also has books for Math, including Multiplication Practice! And they’re offering a bunch of their books FREE to download right now!)

Math

• Fractions flowers – we used this free printable Fraction Flower Craftivity

Science

• Learn about Seed Dispersal. We read MISS MAPLE’S SEEDS and then did the Mystery Science seed dispersal activity (you can sign up for a free membership to access their science lessons as a homeschooling paren).
• Plant a Garden (and watch it grow)

Art

• Paint a Garden – We painted a huge collaborative garden together (see below) using the guidelines in this art workshops for kids book by Herve Tullet (author/illustrator of PRESS HERE). I love love love this book and fully credit it for at least half the times I look like a creative mama.

A week in that is where we are. Watching our garden. Fingers and toes still speckled with a little paint. Asking questions about seeds.

Next week (the first full week in April) our public school officially starts “online schooling” more in earnest. It’s still not clear what that will look like or how much flexibility we will have. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that I can meet their teachers’ expectations and still continue filling their days with active, playful learning.

Other Garden Ideas:

• Picture Books to Put You in the Garden
• Spring Planting Unit for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Growing a Seed Storytime
• Butterfly Unit
• Butterfly Storytime

More Ideas for Third Graders:

• Bird Unit for Early Elementary Schoolers
• Spider Web Hunt with Free Printable

When we left the fire station it was clear our twins were fascinated. They chatted all the way home and all afternoon about what we had seen and done. They were running around the house putting out imaginary fires and asking me questions about fire trucks.

It was obvious that a new interest was emerging.

What do you do when that happens with a toddler? Obviously you can’t have the extensive conversation you could with an older child, but you can still build a project around their interests. 

affiliate links are included below.

I have read extensively about Reggio Emilia and Project Approach. However, both in my work before having children and with our twins, I have worked with very young children. Much of what is written about following the interests of children on the other hand is geared towards preschoolers and above.

Now I understand that more children enter a formal setting around 3 or 4 and I also understand that toddlers are interested in the world, everything in the world. They flit from thing to thing rapidly. In our case, our twins flit rapidly from thing to thing in different directions so that I sometimes start to feel like my head might literally spin off.

HOWEVER…toddlers have interests.

Start with an interest.

My son was interested in trains almost constantly for his first 3 years. Although he temporarily directed his attention towards fire fighters, trains was an interest that stuck for a long time. He is now eight he still pulls out his train set at least once a year. A lifelong interest that developed before 2.

I think the hardest part with toddlers is trying to figure out which interest you should grab onto and help them probe deeper. Sometimes this is obvious (trains) sometimes it is not (rocks). Some interests will putter out in a day or two, some will last for weeks and months.

It gets easier with practice.

Two things to consider when choosing an interest to pursue.

1. Is it a subject with a lot of options?

Is this something that you could pursue in depth with a toddler? Something that you have the ability to see first hand? That offers a depth of vocabulary and ideas to learn about?

2. Do they seem interested on more than one instance?

Do they go to the zoo and get excited about monkeys but then never mention them again? Or do they like the monkeys at the zoo, on their blanket, and in a book? Does the interest seem to appear in different places and without prompting?

Next, Brainstorm.

Once you notice an interest, here are the 5 main things I start brainstorming:

1. Field Trips:

Where can you go to see, feel, touch, experience the interest. Peruse our field trips section for some ideas.

2. Book Lists

Request a stack of books from the library also have your child ask the librarian for ideas. These themed booklists might help you find some good ones. 

3. Real Life Examples

Similar to field trips, but what real examples can you go to or bring into your environment? For example, during our Firefighter Project we walked to the fire hydrants on our block to look at them up close.

4. Sensory Experiences

Toddlers are in the sensory stage where they need to get their hands on a topic. Consider all 5 senses. What can they see, hear, touch, taste, smell? What about this topic’s sensory properties may have grabbed their attention? How can you expand on that? Can clay or other sensory materials be incorporated into their learning?

5. Pretend Play

How can they learn about this through pretend? Can they dress up like it? Can they engage with a miniature version?

Use Resources.

I have the resources below on hand and then help me think of ideas when I get stuck. There’s also always Pinterest.

On Pinterest, you can obviously type in a couple keywords (like Firefighters Toddlers) and browse, but I also keep a running board of fun ideas for toddlers. When I am brainstorming I often go through it and see what sticks out. Often an idea that worked for one interest and sounds like a good fit for my kids can also be adapted to work with their current interest.

Most Helpful Books:

The Language of Art by Ann Pelo

This one is a beautiful introduction to art with young children. It covers the basics of teaching your children how to use simple art materials. I also use it as a reminder of the art options for young kids.

Infants and Toddlers at Work by Ann Lewin-Benham

I used this book constantly when my kids were infants and toddlers. It has tons of ideas for materials to use with young kids. It always gets my wheels spinning.

Project Based Homeschool by Lori Pickert

This is the basics of project based homeschool. It is geared towards older kids but I still find it useful in thinking about our process.

Working in the Reggio Way by Julianne P. Wurm

If your projects lean more towards the Reggio approach, then this is a must have. It walks through the process of emergent curriculum in the Italian way and is again useful when I’m thinking about the process. Questions to ask, ways of presenting ideas, etc.

If you want more, check out my book LITTLE WALKS BIG ADVENTURES for 52 weeks of play, learning, and adventure with toddlers.

Then start small…

Keep these ideas in the back of your mind. Then start with gathering books and putting 1 or 2 things in the environment to see how they respond.

Lay out an art invitation or water experience.

Put some play props on the shelf. Watch how they play with the materials, ask them questions, or listen to conversations they have with peers or siblings.

Read books and listen to their questions.

and see where it goes.

Use the observations and questions to direct where you go next. Toddlers might need a little more prompting than preschoolers, but generally they know what is interesting to them even if they can’t make a KWL (Know, What to Know, Learned) chart with you yet.

For instance, from my observations on the topic of fire fighters after our trip to the station I learned that:

*My son was most interested in the hoses and how the water is involved.

*My daughter was most interested in the fire fighters themselves. Where they ride in the truck, how they save people, etc.

And that is where we began. We walked to a fire hydrant to talk about how firefighters connect their hoses… 

When I think of a Children’s Museum the same things usually come to mind. A pretend play area. Maybe an art area. A pretend store. Usually some sort of water play. The New Children’s Museum will have you questioning all of those assumptions.

The New Children’s Museum is located in downtown San Diego. It is three stories of treehouses and creative spaces and little nooks. We have been to some pretty cool Children’s Museum but this is definitely one of the most inventive.

affiliate links may be included below.

When you enter you will see a huge open air space. The natural light throughout the museum is gorgeous, but that isn’t what your kids will appreciate.

They’ll love an enormous bed to jump on full of soft tires to stack and safe spaces to launch themselves onto a mattress. Have a kid who likes to jump on the bed or your couch? This is the room for them.

Outside on the patio there is a giant car with layers of paint. It’s simple, but genius. Who wants to come paint a car? Grab an art smock and brush.

Or feeling more like some small motor art? Try your hand at creating with clay.

Inside there is also an Innovator’s LAB. I should have started with this perhaps because you will want to pop in here and put your name to reserve a spot when you first arrive. On busy days you might have to wait an hour or two before you can get in. They have ever changing art activities and tinkering type activities led by one of their staff members.

You May Also Like: San Diego Model Railroad Museum

Or run up the stairs to the giant hammock or “whammock” – the most recent installation. This is where my kids always want to start and end.

Or have little ones there are also tot and preschooler designated spaces. Perfect for little ones and without the energy and size of big kids.

Honestly, that is just the start. There’s a cozy cool sand nook, there’s a huge treehouse like room, there are huge tracks where you can race cars and so much more. Something for everyone but all things that encourage open ended exploring, curiosity, creativity, and having fun.

Helpful Tips to Know Before You Go:

• They are open MWRFS 9:30-4 Closed Tuesday during the school year.
• There is a museum lot behind the museum. It isn’t large so it does fill up and you may have to find parking in one of the nearby lots – but take a lap even if there is a sign out front that says it’s full. Sometimes it’s not.
• There are great food options in their award winning cafe – they are also great with allergies.
• There are changing tables in the bathroom on each floor. There are also little bottom friendly toilets which is such a sweet little detail.
• There is a nursing space on the main floor as well.

More Kid Friendly San Diego Ideas!

“Let’s be squirrels today!” my son says taking a spoonful of cereal.

“No. I want to be an orca.” his sister responds. She’s pouring more milk into her cup.

“What if we be different animals in the ocean.” he negotiates. He eats some cereal while she considers this.

Conversations like this are common in our house. Pretending to be something, especially an animal, became part of their day around when they turned 3.

My twins have been obsessed with different animals over the years – deer, sharks, squirrels, orcas, to name a few – but their interest in animals rarely wanes. And pretending to be animals flits in and out of our days like reading books and running errands.

Whether your kiddos are pretending to be animals, reading all the books they can about animals, or obsessed with the puppy laying under your table right now – children love animals.

affiliate links may be included below. thank you for your support.

You May Also Like: Top 10 Gift Ideas for Kids Who Love Animals

Below are the Animal Themed Units that I have done with my twins along with children’s book lists, story times, and other ideas for animals we have covered less in depth. I hope they give you inspiration, a starting point, or ideas for your own animal unit.

Animal Themed Units & Ideas

I have organized the units below in Alphabetical Order to hopefully make it easier for you to find the animal you’re looking for or an animal closest to the one your child loves.

Bears

• Bears Story Time and Big, Medium, Little Sorting

Birds

• Birds Unit for Early Elementary School
• Nesting Birds Mini-Unit
• Local Birds Nature Hike
• Tweet Tweet – Bird Story Time for Preschool
• Ultimate Children’s Book List for All Things Up in a Tree

Bugs & Insects

• Buzzing Bee Storytime

Butterfly

• Butterfly Unit for First Grade
• Butterflying in San Diego: Nature Walk
• Butterfly Storytime

Dogs

• Best Children’s Books for Kids Who Love Dogs and Puppies

Farm Animals

• Farm Field Trip & Unit Ideas
• 10+ Farm Books to Make Your Kids Quack, Cluck and Moo
• Down on the Farm Story Time
• Chick and Egg Story Time with Movement Activity
• Peter Rabbit Story Time
• Click Clack Moo Preschool Story Time
• Cluck Cluck Chickens Storytime

Forest Animals

• Acorns and Squirrels Storytime
• Sly Fox Storytime

Ocean Animals

• Preschool Ocean Animals Unit
• 5 Marine Biology Field Trips & Unit Ideas for 3-5 Grade
• 20+ Ocean Unit Activity Ideas for K-2nd
• 30+ Ocean Animal Picture Books
• Pout Pout Fish Story Time and Writing Printable
• Sea Turtle Unit Ideas

Owls

• Hoot Owl Story Time and Day/Night Sorting

Penguins

• Waddling Penguins Story Time

Polar Bear

• Polar Bear Story Time

Pond Animals

• Pond Walk Field Trip
• In the Small Pond Story Time

Sharks

• Shark Unit for 5-9 Year Olds
• 20+ Awesome Children’s Books for Shark Week

Snails

• Snails Unit for First Grade

Spiders

• Very Busy Spider Story Time and Sensory Bin
• Spider Web Hunt with Free Printable
• 15+ Bat & Spider Book and Storytime Ideas

Squirrels

• Fall Nature Walk
• Ultimate Children’s Book List for All Things Up in a Tree
• Acorns & Squirrels Story Time

Vet

• Vet Unit Field Trip and Ideas

Whales

• Unforgettable Picture Books about Whales

Zoo Animals

• 15+ Awesome Zoo Picture Books for Preschoolers
• Zoo Animal Activities for All Ages
• Teaching 1-1 Correspondence with Goodnight Gorilla
• Zookeeper Training: Project Based Learning Unit

Find 12 More Animal Adventures in My Book!

We’ve jumped waves and played tag. We’ve built a sand castle or at least a mound that looks like a castle. At least one of us has been buried in the sand or made to look like a mermaid. What now?

affiliate links are included in this post.

If you’re going to the beach every day for a week, or you live close to a beach and can go all the time like we’re fortunate enough to do in San Diego right now, having some other out of the box items that rotate into your beach bag can help extend days at the beach with your kids.

8 Things to Pack in Your Beach Bag

Obviously we have buckets and shovels. I also have a fairly obnoxious collection of sand castle building molds. But those get old – what else can you do at the beach?

These are the other more unusual things I rotate in our beach bag:

1. Plastic Animals (think building zoos, burying, pretending) We have these ones – the jumbo size makes them harder to lose.
2. Barbies (build barbie a castle, bury her instead of mom, all manner of pretend) I’m not a huge Barbie fan, but they are water proof. I leave the clothes at home so I don’t have to worry about those getting lost but you could go theme and bring Lifeguard Barbie or Beach Ken.
3. Construction Goggles (these put my kids in the building frame of mind. My kids picked these from our construction costume one day to go in the beach bag and they worked great. I imagine a plastic firefighter hat or other similar thing would spark creative play as well.)
4. Plastic Trucks and Boats (dig ditches to make roads and rivers!) This set of vehicles has made many trips to the beach with us, but anything plastic would work.
5. Kites and Streamers (so much fun on a windy day especially when the beach isn’t too crowded!) Kites, like these, are great but it does have to be fairly windy for kids to not get too frustrated. Streamers are fun even with moderate wind.
6. Funnels and Tubing (you need a bucket or two to make this work but my kids find this kind of STEM experimenting endlessly interesting) You can get these at the hardware store or order them online. You don’t need anything fancy – the wider the better though and make sure the tubes and funnels fit together.
7. Plastic Cooking Toys (more imaginative play. tea parties, picnics, making pretend food from shells and sticks…) I only bring the cooking dishes and maybe a couple of plates – not the food.
8. Water Spray Bottles (fun extra dimension to building sand castles but also just fun to spray. My kids like water play of any kind) You can get different sizes – if your kids’ hands are big enough I like the slightly bigger ones.

The key, I think, is to only bring one or two of these things at a time. If you bring a massive bag with all of it every single time you go to the beach you will a) break your back and b) it’s kind of like a toy chest.

Too many toys at one time will always be overwhelming and result in crazy kids, a huge mess, and a frustrated mom.

I typically bring some of our sand castle toys (a few molds, two buckets, two shovels) and then one or two of the things listed above.

Read Also: 15 Learning Activities for the Beach

It’s amazing what kids can come up with if you give them a few different materials and a big open, natural space to play.

On this particular sunny afternoon (photo above) my twins found zoo animals at the bottom of our beach bag. Bucket caves, stick zoo enclosures, and shovel slides were created and a lion and giraffe became unlikely friends. I even had some blissful moments to enjoy the view and my book.

Read About My Non-Beach Adventure Supplies

Number recognition is a tricky concept for some kids. It is a lot like learning your letters. While it is easy to sing the alphabet, it is more difficult to assign each letter name or sound to a character.

Numbers are the same. While it is fairly easy to grasp the concept of counting to ten, it is more complicated to differentiate between symbols and understand what they stand for in a way they can use. Our Number Line was created to work on just this concept.

also read: mess-free nature shake paintings

I have taken a very hands on approach to teaching Math in our Homeschool Preschool. In general, I think kids learn best through hands on activities. When they can touch and manipulate materials ideas are more concrete and applicable.

I particularly love using natural materials. The textures, the weight, and their gentle colors are appealing.

also read: 5 ways to learn patterns outside

This DIY Number line is made with two easy to find materials and can be used for a variety of number related activities.

To Create:

You will need:
*tin can lids
*rocks (we used some of the many we’ve gathered on our walks)
*a sharpie.

Our can opener leaves smooth edges so I don’t have to worry about jagged edges. If yours doesn’t, find a different object or use tagboard to make circles.

Write the numbers 1-10, or however high you want, on the lids and rocks.

On the lids you can also draw dots or other shapes to represent the number. A sharpie writes well on both rocks and lids.

Play + Learn Time:

NUMBER LINES
Both the lids and rocks can be used individually to make a number line.

NUMBER MATCHING
You can match the numbers on the rocks to the numbers on the lids.

NUMBER TO OBJECT MATCH
You can arrange one in a number line and then sort other objects into number groups. For instance, next to the number 3 lid you could place 3 counters, berries, or blocks.

SONG PROPS
Use the lids or rocks in a number song. For instance, each rock could represent a duck in the “Five Little Ducks” song.

These materials can also be placed in a basket in your playroom for further independent exploration. Just another resource or material for developing number sense.

Subscribe for Weekly Inspiration

I should state this first. In the 15 or so years I have spent educating young children, this is the messiest project I have ever undertaken. That’s second only to our muddy play date – which was also a messy and awesome good time.

In my opinion, it was entirely worth it.

A few years ago painting by rolling pumpkins was a big thing. It seemed like everywhere I looked that Fall I saw cute photos of kids rolling pumpkins around and one afternoon during nap time I sat in my kitchen surrounded by apples after our trip to the farm, I thought – Apples roll…

Ball vs. Apple Messy Paint Roll

There are seemingly endless ideas for exploring various STEM ideas with preschoolers and school aged kids, but fewer for toddler.

Toddlers however are just as curious as their older counterparts and STEM activities can be just as enjoyable – but they often look more like play since they won’t have the charts and graphs and deep conversations.

STEM with toddlers looks a lot like exploration, messy play, curious attention, and lots of questions.

My toddlers are very excited about throwing and rolling balls right now so I thought comparing the two, apples and balls, would be an intriguing experiment for them. The best science starts with curiosity.

This Ball vs. Apple experiment is simply looking at how to mostly round objects roll. This is super basic physics and so much fun to explore.

First. Explore the Materials.

I think a good place to start is to explore a little with a few balls and a few apples.

Let your toddler(s) experiment.

Then ask questions such as:

• How do they roll?
• How do they feel in your hand?
• What’s different? What’s the same?

Or verbalize what they’re doing to scaffold vocabulary by saying things such as:

• I see you watching the apple roll. Should we watch a ball roll next?
• Hmm…you look confused right now. Does the apple roll differently?

Then, add paint.

This is obviously the messy stage of this experiment and certainly a step you can step if you really want to – but I think if you’re prepared it is doable….but yeah. It’s messy.

Materials:

• Big Piece of Paper or large drop cloth
• Tempera (ie. washable) Paint
• Apples
• Balls – Washable or Old
• Paint tray or Plates

Clean Up Materials:

The key to messy play is to have a clean up plan! Know how you’re going to attack cleaning up and have it all ready to go before you introduce the messy activity.

In this case my clean up plan was:

• Contain the activity. We did it in one room with washable walls and floors and I removed all of the furniture. If you can do this outside on a deck or something you can spray down – even better.
• In the room I had prepared: bucket of water, wash clothes, wipes for faces
• I also had a clear path to the bathtub prepared so I could put my kids in their right away when we were done.
• AND – I think this was also key – I did the activity in a room that I could close off afterwards with baby gates so they wouldn’t just run right back into the paint when we were done. Later when they went down for nap I could put a podcast on and clean the room.

Activity Set Up:

Lay out a large piece of paper on the floor. A tarp or huge piece of cardboard would work too. This was their “target” for rolling the objects during the activity. (They missed a lot)

Then I laid out plastic plates with different colored paint and a few balls and apples nearby.

Then I striped them down to diapers (thank goodness their BumGenius diapers were so washable) and dressed myself in my paint clothes (aka clothes I am 100% okay with them hugging me in when they’re covered in paint).

I like to leave our activities open ended so I invited my toddlers over to see if they wanted to try rolling the balls and apples again, but this time in paint!

They had an absolute blast once they confirmed that yes indeed, mom was okay with them rolling and throwing both apples and balls covered in paint around the room.

I asked some questions like:

• You seem a little frustrated. That apple bounces differently than the ball does. Why do you think that is?

Mostly I just observed them and modeled trying different ways to paint with the balls and apples.

Once they had thoroughly explored not only the balls and apples, but also the paint with seemingly every other body part my son signed to me that he was “all done.” so we moved into our clean phase.

I used the water (that until that point had been sitting on the other side of the gate just out of their reach) to rinse my hands and dried them on a wash cloth. I used a wet washcloth to clean off my feet so I could walk to the bathroom without leaving tracks. Then I carried them each to the tub.

I had a fresh set of clothes for all of us in the bathroom – so once they were clean and happy (but still in the tub) I clean off a little at the sink while keeping an eye on them.

Later when they were happily eating and playing in their high chairs I tackled the mess. I got a good start before they wanted to get down and then I finished later when they went down for nap. It was a big mess.

I highly recommend approaching this activity outside or when you are in the state of mind to accept a big mess. However, I think this kind of messy, sensory, free, open ended play is just good fun and helpful in developing important sensory integration.