ElleMae Angels Early Learning Academy

ElleMae Angels Early Learning Academy Pressure-free tours available 💛 Family style dining

🌈 ElleMae Angels Early Learning Academy is a licensed family childcare & preschool in Rancho Cordova offering nurturing, play-based learning in a warm, loving environment. ✨ Now enrolling children ages 12 months–5 years.

08/29/2026

Safety, preparedness, and education go hand in hand. ❤️

Today, I successfully conducted my first American Red Cross CPR, First Aid & AED certification course through Stay Ready CPR & Safety Training.

As the owner and director of ElleMae Angels Early Learning Academy, the safety and well-being of children will always be a priority. CPR and First Aid are valuable skills not only for childcare professionals, but also for parents, grandparents, family members, and anyone who may one day be in a position to help save a life.

CPR courses will be offered on select weekends, as my childcare program remains my primary focus during the week.

More American Red Cross certification and renewal course dates will be announced soon. ❤️

Be prepared. Be confident. Be ready to respond when every second counts.

🏠🧹 Sometimes We Just Let Them PLAY! 🥰I caught our little friend independently exploring our dramatic play area during fr...
08/29/2026

🏠🧹 Sometimes We Just Let Them PLAY! 🥰

I caught our little friend independently exploring our dramatic play area during free play. He grabbed the vacuum cleaner and started “vacuuming,” then made his way over to the kitchen where he used the sink to wash and clean his play food. 🥕🍎💦

During child-led free play, I don’t feel the need to constantly correct or redirect his imagination. There’s no “No, that goes over here” or “That’s not how you do it.” This is HIS opportunity to explore, make connections, use his imagination, and decide where his play takes him. 💭❤️

And while he was simply enjoying himself, he was learning A LOT:

🧹 Practical life skills & everyday routines
🎭 Imaginative and dramatic play
🧠 Memory & imitation of things he sees adults do
💭 Independent thinking & decision-making
🧩 Problem-solving
🗣️ Language & vocabulary development
🖐🏾 Fine and gross motor development
🧼 Early understanding of cleanliness & caring for his environment
🔄 Sequencing — understanding that everyday tasks happen in steps
❤️ Independence, confidence & responsibility

One of my favorite parts of being an early childhood educator is sometimes just sitting back and OBSERVING. 👀🥰

Child-led play gives me an opportunity to see what our little learners already know, what they’ve picked up from the world around them, and how they make sense of their everyday experiences.

Not every learning experience needs adult direction. Sometimes Miss Keke gets to be his playmate, follow HIS lead, and see where his imagination takes us. 🥰🏠🧹

🎨🔴 Learning Through Art With Bingo Stampers! 🔵🟡Our little friend had some creative fun exploring art with bingo stampers...
08/29/2026

🎨🔴 Learning Through Art With Bingo Stampers! 🔵🟡

Our little friend had some creative fun exploring art with bingo stampers! 🥰

It may look like we’re simply making colorful dots on paper, but those little hands are BUSY learning and developing! 🖐🏾🧠

Using bingo stampers helps our toddler practice:

🎨 Color recognition
🖐🏾 Fine-motor skills & hand strength
✍🏾 Pre-writing skills — learning to grasp and control a writing tool
👀 Hand-eye coordination
🎯 Aim, control & accuracy
🧠 Cause and effect — press down and a colorful mark appears!
💭 Creativity & self-expression
🔵 Shape and pattern awareness
🗣️ Language development as we talk about the colors and his artwork
⏳ Focus, patience & concentration

Activities like this are also helping prepare those little hands for future drawing, coloring, tracing, and eventually writing letters and numbers. ✏️

And one thing we LOVE around here is allowing children to create without worrying about making everything “perfect.” Sometimes the PROCESS of creating is where the most important learning happens. 🥰🎨

Little hands + BIG learning! 🖐🏾🧠❤️

🎨🅰️ Sensory Learning With Our Letter of the Month! 🖐🏾✨As we wrapped up our Letter of the Month, A, our little friend had...
08/29/2026

🎨🅰️ Sensory Learning With Our Letter of the Month! 🖐🏾✨

As we wrapped up our Letter of the Month, A, our little friend had the opportunity to explore the letter through finger painting and sensory play! 🅰️🎨

We talked about the color of the paint, how it felt on his hands, whether his hands were clean or messy, and of course—the LETTER A!

From my observation, he REALLY enjoyed the sensory experience. 🥰 He spent time moving the paint around with his hands, feeling the texture, and exploring what happened when he spread it across the paper.

Through this activity, he was working on:

🅰️ Letter recognition & early literacy
🎨 Color recognition
🖐🏾 Sensory and tactile exploration
🗣️ Language & descriptive vocabulary—wet, smooth, messy, clean, etc.
👆 Finger and hand strength
👀 Hand-eye coordination
🧠 Cause and effect
🎭 Creativity & self-expression
💭 Curiosity and independent exploration
🎯 Focus & concentration

Sensory art allows our little learners to experience a concept instead of only seeing or hearing about it. He wasn’t just looking at the letter A—he was touching, creating, talking, and exploring while being introduced to it. 🅰️🖐🏾🧠

And sometimes getting a little messy is part of the learning! 😂🎨

💦🌊 Water Play = STEM Play! 🐠🧠During outdoor play, our toddler spent some time exploring our two-level sensory water tabl...
08/29/2026

💦🌊 Water Play = STEM Play! 🐠🧠

During outdoor play, our toddler spent some time exploring our two-level sensory water table! 💙

This table gives him the opportunity to scoop, pour, fill, empty, and experiment with water. One of his favorite parts is pouring water into the TOP level and watching it travel through the tiny holes and fall to the bottom like RAIN! 🌧️💦

While he’s having fun, there is A LOT of learning happening!

🌧️ Science — observing gravity, water flow & cause and effect
🥤 Early Math — exploring full, empty, more, less & volume
💦 STEM — experimenting with what happens when water is poured in different places
🖐🏾 Fine-motor skills — scooping, pouring, grasping & transferring
👀 Hand-eye coordination
🧠 Problem-solving & critical thinking
🐠 Sea-life recognition & vocabulary
🔄 Repetition & prediction — “What happens if I do it again?”
🎯 Focus & concentration
🌊 Sensory exploration

Every time he pours that water and watches it fall, he is making a prediction, observing a result, and learning through cause and effect. That’s our little scientist at work! 🧪🥰

At this age, STEM doesn’t have to look like a formal science lesson. Sometimes it looks like a toddler with a cup of water pouring it over and over and over again because he’s figuring out how the world works. 💙

PLAY with a PURPOSE! 💦🧠✨

🌳🍂 Nature Is a Classroom Too! 🍂🌳Last week during outdoor play, Delano noticed some of the dried leaves and seed pods tha...
08/29/2026

🌳🍂 Nature Is a Classroom Too! 🍂🌳

Last week during outdoor play, Delano noticed some of the dried leaves and seed pods that had fallen from one of our trees. He discovered the little black seeds inside and immediately became curious! 🥰

Instead of directing his play, I followed HIS interest. I grabbed one of the bowls from our outdoor dramatic play area and let him collect, examine, count, and explore the seeds he found. 🌱

He started noticing that some were bigger and some were smaller, counting his collection, and examining what he had found.

This little child-led moment was full of learning! 🧠✨

🌱 Science — exploring plants, trees, seeds & nature
🔢 Math — counting and early number concepts
📏 Comparing — recognizing different sizes
🔍 Observation — looking closely at natural objects
🧠 Critical thinking & curiosity
🖐🏾 Fine-motor skills — picking up and collecting small objects
👀 Hand-eye coordination
🗣️ Language development — talking about what he discovered
🌎 Environmental awareness & appreciation for nature
💭 Independent, child-led exploration

No worksheet. No planned lesson. Just a curious toddler, a tree, some seeds, a bowl, and an opportunity to explore. 🌳🌱💕

These are the moments I LOVE to capture because children are naturally little scientists. Sometimes our job as educators is simply to notice what has caught their attention, provide the tools, and let the learning happen. 🥰

🧽✨ I Caught a Learning Moment During Free Play! ✨🧽Sometimes the BEST learning happens when we simply give children the e...
08/28/2026

🧽✨ I Caught a Learning Moment During Free Play! ✨🧽

Sometimes the BEST learning happens when we simply give children the environment and freedom to explore. 🥰

During free play this morning, our toddler was exploring our dramatic play kitchen when he found our pretend “disinfecting wipes.” I love adding clean, real-life household containers to our dramatic play area, so I cleaned out an actual wipes container and filled it with paper towels for the children to use during play.

Without being prompted, he pulled out a “wipe” and started cleaning his kitchen! 🥹🧽

He was mimicking something he sees Miss Keke do after preparing meals and something he may see the adults in his life do at home.

And YES—this is learning! 🧠✨

Through this simple moment, he was developing:

🧠 Memory, observation & imitation
🏠 Real-life practical skills
🧽 Understanding of cleaning and daily routines
🙌🏾 Independence & responsibility
🎭 Imaginative and dramatic play
🖐🏾 Fine-motor coordination
🗣️ Language & vocabulary development
💭 Sequencing and cause-and-effect
❤️ Care for his environment

Dramatic play gives children the opportunity to make sense of the world around them by practicing what they see in everyday life. Today nobody told him what to do—he remembered, made the connection, and did it all on his own. 👏🏾

Those little moments tell us A LOT about what our children are watching, remembering, and learning. 💕



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🚗🚒 Sorting, Matching & Counting! 🚓🚌We’re continuing our Transportation & Community Helpers theme with some hands-on lear...
08/28/2026

🚗🚒 Sorting, Matching & Counting! 🚓🚌

We’re continuing our Transportation & Community Helpers theme with some hands-on learning! 🥰

For today’s activity, our toddler used different colored vehicles and matching colored bowls. His job was to identify each vehicle’s color, find the bowl with the matching color, sort it into the correct group, and then count how many vehicles he had! 🔴🟡🟢🔵

Through this activity, he practiced:

🎨 Color recognition & matching
🧠 Sorting & classification
🔢 Counting & one-to-one correspondence
🚗 Transportation & vehicle recognition
👮🏾‍♀️🚒 Community-helper connections
👀 Visual discrimination
🖐🏾 Fine-motor & hand-eye coordination
💭 Problem-solving & critical thinking
🗣️ Language and vocabulary development
📋 Following multi-step directions

Activities like this introduce early STEM and math concepts by teaching children to recognize similarities and differences, organize objects into groups, identify patterns, and understand quantities.

We’re not just playing with cars—we’re learning! 🚗🧠✨



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🌈 Learning Through Play with Play-Doh! 🖐🏾🧠Today we pulled out our Play-Doh and tools for some hands-on learning! We prac...
08/28/2026

🌈 Learning Through Play with Play-Doh! 🖐🏾🧠

Today we pulled out our Play-Doh and tools for some hands-on learning! We practiced rolling and shaping our Play-Doh into balls, identifying the different colors, and then counting each ball as we created them. 🔴🟡🟢🔵

While it looks like simple play, our toddler was working on SO many developing skills:

✨ Color recognition & vocabulary
🔢 Counting & one-to-one correspondence
🖐🏾 Fine-motor skills & hand strength
👀 Hand-eye coordination
🧠 Following directions & problem-solving
⭕ Shape recognition
🗣️ Language development
🎨 Creativity & sensory exploration
💡 Early STEM concepts—shaping, changing, comparing, counting, and experimenting with materials

Rolling, squeezing, pinching, pressing, and using Play-Doh tools also helps strengthen those little hand and finger muscles that he’ll eventually use for holding pencils, drawing, cutting, and writing. ✏️✂️

At ElleMae Angels Early Learning Academy, we love turning everyday PLAY into opportunities to learn! 💕 Because at this age, play IS learning. 🥰



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🖐🏾✨ Learning Through Play Every Day! ✨🖐🏾Our indoor kinetic sand table has definitely become one of our toddler’s favorit...
08/28/2026

🖐🏾✨ Learning Through Play Every Day! ✨🖐🏾

Our indoor kinetic sand table has definitely become one of our toddler’s favorite daily activities! 🥰 He loves scooping, pouring, squeezing, molding, and creating different shapes like fish 🐟, starfish ⭐, sea turtles 🐢, cars 🚗, trains 🚂, and even a school bus 🚌.

And while it may look like he’s “just playing,” there is SO much learning happening! 🧠💡

Kinetic sand play incorporates STEM learning as he explores how materials move, change shape, fill containers, pour, pack together, and hold different forms. He’s also working on:

✨ Fine-motor skills and hand strength
✨ Hand-eye coordination
✨ Sensory exploration
✨ Problem-solving
✨ Creativity and imagination
✨ Cause and effect
✨ Early math concepts like size, shape, volume, and measurement
✨ Focus and concentration
✨ Language development as we name and talk about what he creates

This is why we believe so strongly in learning through play at ElleMae Angels Early Learning Academy. 💕 Our little learners don’t always need a worksheet to learn—sometimes they just need some sand, a scoop, a few tools, and the freedom to explore! 🥰



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Address

Folsom Boulevard
Rancho Cordova, CA
95670

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Tuesday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Wednesday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Thursday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Friday 7:30am - 5:30pm

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