Hand in Hand Learning Land

02/21/2026

How much fun! Wish I had thought of this one!

09/17/2025

09/06/2025

We do children a disservice when we reduce early childhood to colors, numbers, shapes, and letters. These concepts will come, but when we fixate on them too early or too narrowly, we risk turning learning into pressure, rote drills, and forced lessons that dampen curiosity. Instead of opening children up to the joy of discovery, this approach can make learning feel like a performance or a checklist to get through.

What often gets overlooked are the skills that matter most for long-term cognition: problem-solving, persistence, self-regulation, creativity, language, and the ability to connect ideas across experiences. These are the foundations that make colors, numbers, shapes, and letters meaningful later on. When early childhood is reduced to surface-level academics, we rob children of the chance to build the deeper capacities that allow true learning to stick.

Early childhood is about so much more. It is about building the brain through play, strengthening the body through movement, wiring for empathy and regulation through relationships, and developing a love of learning that lasts far beyond preschool. When we allow concepts like numbers, letters, shapes, and colors to be discovered in meaningful, everyday contexts, children connect with them naturally and deeply.

05/13/2025

02/04/2025

01/17/2025

07/02/2024

Love this!

12/12/2023

Exactly!

Thank you to Your Natural Learner - Leah McDermott💙

11/26/2023

Did you know? Play-based learning can have a “greater positive effect” on the acquisition of early math skills, shape knowledge, and task switching than more traditional approaches that prioritize seat time and explicit instruction. 🤸 📐

06/25/2023

"Never play the princess when you can be the queen: rule the kingdom, swing a scepter, wear a crown of gold. Don't dance in glass slippers, crystal carving up your toes -- be a barefoot Amazon instead, for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet."