Category: Featured

Featured

Design Inspiration and the Child’s Play Space

✨The child helps us see what we don’t. My (now grown) children are consistently helpful in this area. Marni Jameson’s* interview with Thom Filicia said it best: “We all stop seeing ourselves and our homes honestly, and can benefit from outside experts who have good taste and a keen eye to help us see what

The Very Hungry Caterpillar —Why Less Is More

With good reason, caterpillars have an ever-growing appetite for more. Preparing to become a chrysalis takes energy! As Eric Carle describes in his story, The very Hungry Caterpillar, “On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one

Toddler Art Activities and Hands On Learning

Naturally drawn to hands-on exploration, early art activities are especially attractive to the toddler. This attraction encourages the gathering of important information through touch. As Dr. Montessori discovered, “The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself.” Toddler Art Benefits: The benefits to learning through art are many. To begin with, engaging in toddler art

Tasty Greens: An Appealing and Sensorial Toddler Activity

Most often, toddlers are eager to try new activities. Typically, they are “all in” when invited to participate. With boundless enthusiasm for learning, the young child tends to explore with all their developing senses and abilities. Because of this, it’s not uncommon for a toddler to want to explore an activity by tasting and “mouthing”

The Art Cart — An Invitation to Paint

Before my young friend arrived, I had prepared our art cart hoping there would be something that would catch her eye. Sure enough, the paint set was the the visual invitation that sparked her interest. While holding a paint set in one hand and a paint brush in the other, she turned and looked up at

Leaps of Language and Learning

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” Fred Rogers Outdoor play time is an important part of our day. Here in the South Carolina Lowcountry, the weather in April typically means we spend more of our day outside playing and learning. Lucky for us, there is no better classroom for children

The Prepared Nest in the Spotlight

This past spring, I was contacted by Baan Dek Montessori school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and invited to participate in their Spotlight Series (link below in green font). Surprisingly, I first discovered Baan Dek’s logo on a creative branding site called Fuzzco (a local Charleston, SC creative studio). I was intrigued and soon began