march into literacy

Adding a Little More Poetry to Our Lives

We can tend to think of poetry as being outside of our normal interests. And we can assume that poetry is boring or inaccessible, especially for children. But with April being National Poetry Month, it’s a good time to evaluate these assumptions about poetry and its place in our reading repertoire. And kids can especially enjoy and benefit from poetry. So during this National Poetry Month, let’s consider adding a little more poetry to our lives. Poetry is for kids too The rhyming nature of poetry can appeal to children in the same way as a well rhythmed song. And …

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view the world through a lens of humor

Make Up Your Own Holiday Together

The calendar is full of all kinds of holidays, with a reason to celebrate for almost every day of the year. It’s fun to insert these fun days into our schedules, to stop for donuts because it’s a donut day, or to hunt for phone booths or fun landmarks. But on March 26, we will have a different kind of holiday. It will be Make Up Your Own Holiday Day! The possibilities are endless with this special day. It’s a great chance to get creative or to go back and celebrate one of your favorites.  Creativity day If your children …

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celebrate light when the world is dark

Celebrate Light When the World is Dark

Spring is right in front of us, and it inspires us to celebrate. But sometimes it feels like celebration isn’t appropriate when there is so much hurt going on in our world. People are fragile right now. Many of us are still waiting for the cold of winter to pass, even with the calendar telling us it’s almost spring. And yet, it really is almost spring! And even with the difficulties and injustices in our world, we can celebrate. In fact, it’s really important to celebrate light when the world is dark. It really is fun to celebrate the beginning …

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go on a seek-and-find adventure with your kids

Go on a Seek-and-Find Adventure with Your Kids

March 10 is International Find a Pay Phone Booth Day. Try to say that ten times fast! Hunting for unusual items with your children can be lots of fun. And if the weather is improving in your area, it’s a great time to get outside and go on a seek-and-find adventure with your kids. You could search for phone booths or anything else you can think of. Some places already have fun things to search for with your family. So get online, get creative, and get outside to have a fun searching adventure with your kids. Adventures benefit our kids …

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learn with cookies

Learn with Cookies on National Oreo Cookie Day

Did you know that there is actually an official day to celebrate Oreo cookies! At first thought, we’d likely pass this by as a day to let our kids eat a few Oreos, or even to enjoy a few ourselves. But you can have so much fun learning and playing with Oreos. Your kids really can learn with cookies! So on March 6, National Oreo Cookie Day, let’s use Oreos to help our kids learn in a really fun way. Learning Activities As you work on these fun learning activities, you can also learn the signs for LEARN and COUNT. …

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squeeze in some end-of-winter fun

Squeeze in Some End-of-Winter Fun

Many of us are hoping winter will be over soon. Some of my friends in warmer climates are posting pictures of their early flowers blooming, and I have to admit that I’m a little jealous. Where I live, we just had snow AGAIN. But no matter where you live, it’s still the end of February, so we have hope that winter will end soon. And this closing of winter is a great time to squeeze in some end-of-winter fun with your kids! Everyday life can get dull for our kids, and really, for us parents as well. When we can …

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national love your pet day

National Love Your Pet Day is Coming Up

February 20 is National Love Your Pet Day. Pet owners do love their extra family members! This is a day to celebrate our pets and to show them some extra love. And it’s a perfect time to teach our little ones about our pets. They can learn to help take care of the pets in our homes. And while we’re at it, we could help them learn the ASL sign for their pet, and maybe for some other animals too! We often think of pets as cats or dogs, and we refer to them as our furry friends. But many …

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Hold Your Own Family Winter Games

Hold Your Own Family Winter Games

We’re in the Olympic season again! And while the Olympic games can be fun to watch, they also give us a chance to expose our kids to some new things. There are different sports that they may not have heard of, and there are different countries participating. The Olympics are full of good conversation starters and learning activities. To make it more fun, and to fight off the late winter boredom, you could even hold your own family winter games! In this Signing Time Blog post about the Summer Olympic games, we talked about enjoying a specific sport with your …

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show our kids how to become loving people

Let’s Show Our Kids How to Become Loving People

As we head into the Valentine’s season, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the hearts and candy aspect of love. Our kids spend time preparing sweet messages for their classmates and friends. And as adults, we do the same for our own relationships. This annual celebration of love is a good reminder to live out and demonstrate our love. But as we teach our children, could we go a little deeper with our teaching and our example? Can we show our kids how to become loving people? When our kids work on their Valentines, they often have favorites and …

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reboot our resolutions

Is it Time to Reboot Our Resolutions?

We’re at the end of January, and New Year’s thoughts are far behind many of us. The things that we were motivated and excited about a few weeks ago may have become successful new habits. Or it’s quite possible that those resolutions are long forgotten. Many of us do tend to slack off of our new resolutions pretty quickly. So now that we’re at the end of what we consider to be the resolution month, it might be a good time to reboot our resolutions. According to Discover Daily Habits, once only one week of January has gone by, 25% …

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