Preparing Your Child for Preschool: 3 Reasons Why You Should Buy Wood Puzzles for Your Child

Are you looking for a fun, yet educational toy for your child to play with at home? If you are, you will want to examine wood puzzles. Although wood puzzles aren’t known as the best toys on earth, especially when compared some of the latest electronic toys to hit the market today, there are a still a number of reasons why you should buy them. In fact, 3 reasons are outlined below.

1 – They Are Strong

If you visit your local dollar store or opt for some of the cheap puzzles, you will likely get cardboard pieces. These pieces are nice, but they don’t always stand up to toddlers and preschoolers. Instead, spend the extra few dollars to get a wood puzzle. As long as the pieces don’t magically disappear (lol) you should have that puzzle for a few years.

2 – They Come in a Number of Different Formats

Of course, all puzzles come in a number of different formats, but the options that you have is just another one of the reasons why you should examine wood puzzles. If you are looking to educate your child from home, you will likely want to purchase educational wood puzzles. The good news is that you have so many options. There are wood puzzles available for sale that focus on the ABCs, numbers, animals, shapes, colors, and so much more!

3 – They Can Be Both Fun and Educational

Puzzles are something that children never really outgrow. As your child gets older, however, they will likely enjoy doing puzzles with more pieces. As previously stated, there are a number of educational puzzles available for sale, making sure that your child not only has a fun time playing with wood puzzles, but an educational time as well.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Christmas Gift Idea

If your toddler or preschooler loves crafts as much as mine does, you will want to examine stamp sets. They can make for the perfect Christmas gift.

What is nice about stamp sets as Christmas gifts is that you have so many options. There are those that come with the alphabet, numbers, animals, or other fun objects.

If you give a stamp set as a Christmas gift, be cautious with the age, as some may come with small parts.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Christmas Gift Idea

LeapFrog My First LeapPad Alphabet Bus. We have this item. I love it and my daughter loves it.

The LeapFrog My First LeapPad Alphabet Bus comes in a couple of different formats. Personally, we love the Alphabet Bus, which is pictured above. This item is fun in design and there are a few additional ABC activities built right in, no book required.

Speaking of books, the LeapFrog My First LeapPad comes with one double-sided book. In fact, all of the books that I have found have been double-sided. Although these books do cost extra, I have seen them coming down in price quite a bit.

These are the LeapFrog My First LeapPad books that my daughter has and loves:

My First LeapPad Book Disney Pooh's Honey Tree

LeapFrog My First LeapPad Educational Book: Dora The Explorer To the Rescue

LeapFrog My First LeapPad Educational Book: Bear in the Big Blue House - Tutter's Tiny Trip

My First LeapPad Book: Tad's Silly Number Farm

TADS SILLY WRITING FAIR MY FIRST LEAPPAD BOOK

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Christmas Gift Ideas

Don't Break the Ice is a classic preschool game that you may want to consider giving to your child as a gift. In fact, you may have even played Don’t Break the Ice when you were younger.

Although no reading is required to play this preschool game, there are still ways that you can make it educational in nature. For example, my daughter and I count each of the ice pieces as we put them into the base. We will also occasionally stop and count how many ice pieces are left.

One of the many reasons why this preschool game can make for a great Christmas gift is because it is affordable.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Christmas Gift Idea

Yep, another one of the many items that I would like to recommend as a Christmas gift for toddlers and preschoolers is made by LeapFrog. This toddler toy is called the LeapFrog Word Whammer™ Fridge Phonics® Set.

The LeapFrog Word Whammer™ Fridge Phonics® Set makes a great Christmas gift for those who may already own the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Set, which as outlined below. This toy comes with all of the letters and a few extra, as well as a base. These items will stick to your fridge, but you may also enjoy playing with them on the floor or at a table.

The LeapFrog Word Whammer™ Fridge Phonics® Set is nice because it has a number of different modes. For starters, your child can press the alphabet song note to have the alphabet sung to them. They can also create their own three letter words and press each letter to have the word pronounced and a catchy song may also follow. There is also a word hunt mode, where your child finds specific letters to build a certain word.

This toy is great for teaching your child to read.

The LeapFrog Word Whammer™ Fridge Phonics® Set tends to retail between $20 and $25.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Christmas Gift Ideas

If you are looking for fun, yet educational toys to give your child as Christmas gifts, you will want to take the time to examine the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set. This toy is one that we own and love.

The LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set comes with letters magnets and a base. The magnets are not the traditional cheap kind that you can also purchase. They are actually really neat.

When using this toy, your child can put a letter magnet in the base. This toddler toy will then tell your child what the letter is, as well as what that letter says. There is also an alphabet mode, where the alphabet will be sung. You can also purchase replacement magnets, incase any magically disappear from your home (lol, something that we have, personally, experienced).


***** The version pictured above is one that includes numbers as well. I haven’t really come across this version online, but we did purchase ours from our local Wal-Mart.

The LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set tends to retail between $15 and $20.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Toddler Educational Toys that Make Great Gifts

If you are looking to give a fun, yet educational gift to your toddler or preschooler, you will want to examine the Leap Frog Bingo Game. Even if you aren’t a parent, but must purchase a gift for a toddler or preschooler, the Leap Frog Bingo Game is still a must have.

The Leap Frog Bingo Game is designed for children ages three and up. With that in mind, my daughter has owned and avidly played this game since she was about 2 ½.

The game is designed for two to four players. There are four spinners, a large number of bingo pieces, and a total of 12 bingo cards. There are cards for animals and colors, shapes and colors, as well as numbers. Two of the spinners, the number and the math spinners, are to be used with the same bingo cards.

One of my few complaints with the Leap Frog Bingo Game is that the spinners are made from thin cardboard, although the stand is plastic. This just requires a little bit extra attention and care.

What I like about the Leap Frog Bingo Game is that it encourages thinking, as well as multi-tasking. For example, the animal bingo cards are also colored cards. In each bingo square, there is an animal with a color as the background. The spinner is set up the same. This means that your child cannot put a bingo piece on any tiger, but say the tiger with a yellow background.

The cost of this great preschool toy will vary, depending on where you shop. With that in mind, it can typically be purchased for $10 to $20.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Christmas / Holiday Gifts

As Christmas starts approaching, you may want to get started with your holiday shopping. If you are the parent of a toddler or a preschooler, you may be looking for fun, yet educational toys and other gifts.

For the next few days and off and on leading up to Christmas, I will focus on educational toys that are ideal for toddlers and preschoolers, like your own. As a parent myself, I know the importance of having fun toys, as well as educational toys. That is why I will take steps to ensure that the toys listed have a combination of both fun and education.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – Learning in the Bathtub

When shopping online today, I came across something pretty neat. I have found some ABC letters that you can use in the bathtub. I have seen them sold locally before, but I honestly just passed by them. With wanting to spice up the whole preschool learning thing with my daughter, I thought that I would give them a try.

These Bath ABC Stickersare made and sold by a number of different product manufacturers and retailers. No matter which brand you purchase, you should find that the letters will stick to the bathtub or the tile when wet. This is not only great for teaching your child their ABC’s, but also how to read. I am going to wait until I see how I like the ones that I ordered before I order more for reading.

Although I have not actually received this product yet and officially had the ability to test it out, I did want to take the time to recommend it. I will let everyone know whether these Bath ABC Stickers meet my expectations later on.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – LeapFrog My First LeapPad Book

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If you are interested in buying the LeapFrog My First LeapPad system for your child, I would recommend getting the book that is titled “Tad’s Silly Writing Fair.” It is a great book. Your child gets to learn their letters, by tracing them and learning their sounds. They can also learn some animals too, as each letter is assigned an animal.

Out of all of the books that we have for the LeapFrog My First LeapPad system, my daughter loves this one and plays with it the most.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – My First LeapPad Books

In my last post, I mentioned how we use the LeapFrog My First LeapPad in our home. For the most part, you will find that the system itself costs around $25 to $30. With me being so cheap, I was a little hesitant to buy it, but I am glad that I did.

As it was also mentioned, the LeapFrog My First LeapPad requires the cartridges and books to work, although the school bus system does have some built in activities. You will find that you have a number of books to choose from. The one pictured above is a Dora the Explorer one, as my daughter is a huge Dora the Explorer fan.

As for the cost of the books, you will find that it varies. I have seen some stores that have the LeapFrog My First LeapPad books available for $9 and others that sell them as high as $15. I did buy the LeapFrog My First LeapPad system new, as I wanted to make sure that I got one that worked; however, all of the books were bought off of eBay. Some of them came new and others were in like new condition. I saved myself quite a bit of money by turning to eBay.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – My First LeapPad

One of the many educational toys that we have in our home is the LeapFrog My First LeapPad. I bought this for my daughter as a Valentine’s Day gift and the thing is absolutely awesome.

The LeapFrog My First LeapPad comes in a number of different formats, but we chose the school bus one. It is pretty neat because even when you don’t have a book in there, you can still play with the letters that are on the bus, as well as do a number of different activities.

The My First LeapPad works with books. The books come with cartridges. You will find that many are double sided; therefore, it is like getting two books for one. Many of the pages have numerous activities on them, but you can also just use them for reading. You can take the wand across the words and it says them slowly, making learning to read fun and easy.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – Doodle Pad

One tool that we regularly use in our home is a Doodle Pad. What I like about the Doodle Pad is that it can double as a fun toy and an educational one.

In our home, we have used the Doodle Pad to practice learning numbers, counting, learning letters, and saying the ABCs. Right now, my daughter is using her Doodle Pad to learn how to read and write. I write out a three letter words for her to read and she does, but she likes like tracing the letters on the Doodle Pad.

Another thing that I like about using a Doodle Pad is that is clean and mess-free. You can use paper and other items to practice reading and writing, but the Doodle Pad is nice if you suddenly decide to work on something with your child or if you don’t want to have to clean up a mess when you are done.

The Doodle Pad that we own is the “real,” kind, lol I guess that is what you would call it, from Fisher Price. I have also seen more affordable versions at many stores, including Wal-Mart.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – Play Cash Register

Yesterday, I mentioned how we use play foods to learn about healthy foods in our home. Another way that you can use play foods is with a toy cash register. Toy cash registers are also nice as it sort of works to disguise learning. Your child may end up having so much fun that they don’t even realize that they are actually learning something new.

The play cash register that we have is pictured above. It was bough from Wal-Mart, I believe. It was one of the cheapest ones that they had. The numbers pad really works and the scanner beeps and lights up when you push the button. In addition to learning about the foods sold at a grocery store, using a play cash register can also help you teach your child about money, as well as practice counting.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – Play Food

Another great, but unique way for you to help educate your child from home or prepare them for preschool is with play food. Play food is a great way to help educate your child on their foods, namely healthy foods.

Above, is a picture of a few play food sets that we have in our home. What is nice about these types of sets is that they are pretty affordable. I believe that we got our set from Wal-Mart.

What we do with our play food is learn what each piece is and then work on categorizing the foods. For instance, my daughter will regularly sort the fruits from the vegetables and so forth.