Free Printable Activities for Kids

Summer can be a difficult time to keep kids motivated and keep kids learning. Parents can spend a lot of money buying programs and curriculum, hiring tutors, or paying for summer camp experiences. Summer can be a fun time to explore the outdoors and enjoy hands on summer learning activities. Summer can also be a great time to spend reading great books to keep little minds sharp. Another fun way to keep kids engaged over the summer, is with worksheets and coloring sheets. Coloring and writing can keep finger muscles strong for writing and learning during the school year. Some kids really enjoy playing school or completing coloring sheets. It can get expensive to buy workbooks and activity packs. I've found an online source with fun coloring pages and worksheets for kids to use over the summer, and it's free!
Free Printable Online offers free printable worksheets, cards, lesson plans, activities, and crafts that your child may enjoy during the summer months.
There are many ways to use Free Printable Online in your summer learning. Children can practice real life writing skills by creating and sending their own printable cards using the free printable card maker. There are free printable crafts like printable origami. Learning a new skill, like folding origami, can be a fun summer project. Printable games, like word searches, can be taken along on family road trips. Children can review skills taught during the school year with free printable worksheets.
Free Printable Online offers a lot of free options for summer learning. The worksheets have very simple graphics and simple concepts, but they could be a fun and easy way to keep kids learning all summer.

Sammy Experiences God by Tom Blackaby

Our children have so many experiences in life-- going to school, joining a t-ball team, spending time with family and friends, etc. As parents, we plan their experiences, hoping that each experience adds value to their lives. Sometimes in the hustle of a busy life, we can miss out on helping our children experience the most important part of life, experiencing God.
The terminology, "experiencing God" may have a familiar ring to many parents. In fact, like me, you may have actually done a Bible study, written by Henry Blackaby, called "Experiencing God". These experiencing God lessons are now available in picture book format for children. Experiencing God is something that I want for my boys. When I had the opportunity to review, Sammy Experiences God by Tom Blackaby, I was excited to see how these lessons could impact my boys. After all, I don't want my boys to have all of life's experiences and miss out on experiencing God. The links in this post are affiliate links. I was sent a free copy of this book for review purposes.
Sammy Experiences God: An Experiencing God at Home Storybook by Tom Blackaby, Sammy loves reading Bible stories with his parents and he wants to experience God on his own, just like the Bible characters he has read about. When his experiences aren't as dramatic as those in the Bible, Sammy is disappointed. Luckily, his wise Grandpa Henry steps in and helps Sammy see that God has been with him every step of the way. He shares great principles about experiencing God in our everyday life.
The book, Sammy Experiences God, is a well written story with wise principles. The illustrations are engaging for kids. Kids will love reading about Sammy and seeing each of Sammy's illustrations on each page. There are Bible verses to accompany the illustrations, so families could read those stories as they read the story book. There are also frogs hidden in the illustrations on each page for children to discover. The book includes a secret code, which is a fun feature. There are words written in three different colors. Children find the secret words, write them in order, and read the special coded messages. The codes contain a ton of sight words, which means kids will be able to write and decode the messages pretty easily! The book also includes a parent guide.

Blackaby Books International has released a new line of books so the whole family can share Experiencing God. Check out these other titles. (There are amazon affiliate links)
Experiencing God at Home
Seven Steps to Knowing, Doing, and Experiencing the Will of God for Teens

  I received this book free of charge from Shelton Interactive in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was given.

Summer Learning Activities

Welcome back to Mom's Library. Each week I co-host this linky party which features parenting tips, activities for kids, stories, crafts, recipes, and more! PLUS, now Mom's Library has a weekly giveway! Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss anything.

Last week I was excited to see a ton of activities that my family can use for summer learning activities. We want kids to continue learning during the summer months, but we don't want that learning to be boring! This week I am featuring fun summer learning activities. These activities for kids are hands on. Many of them take the learning into the outdoors. Kids won't even know they are learning all summer! 

Dig into Reading Gardening Activities from KCedventures. KCEdventures shares that this summer the National Summer Library Book theme is "Dig into Reading". She has rounded up a bunch of great books and book activities on a gardening theme to help with the summer library theme!

Create a backyard water wheel from iGameMom (yes, there is an app for this).

Splish Splash Water Math from Crayon Freckles Check out these great learning activities for learning about measurement.

Water Bead Science from Gift of Curiosity Water beads are a fun summer activity. Try out this science experiement using water beads.

Magic Paint from Coffee with Us 3 We used to make this paint during Vacation Bible School. I can still remember painting the whole church with it! Find out the "magic" ingredient.

Scooping Ice from Sugar Aunts Cool off with this fun and easy learning activity

Creating Art with NonTraditional Materials from Gummy Lump Use object from nature in a painting project.

Catch a Spider Web from Preschool Powol Packets Go on a hunt outdoors for spider webs. Preschool Powol Packets shares an awesome way to capture spider webs so you can study their formations!

Going on a Shape Hunt from Gummy Lump Explore the outdoors and learn about shapes.

18 Ways to Spend a Day at the Park from KCEdventures Don't let your park time get boring, try these fun, simple ideas!

Frugal Summer Activities from Real Housewifes Clip Coupons I've already added some of these fun and frugal summer activities to my calendar for the summer!

Alphabet Summer Fun from Growing Book by Book Activities for each day that fit with beginning alphabet sounds plus a book to accompany each summer activity. 

Summer Bucket List from School Time Snippets Create a list of activities to complete before Summer kicks the bucket.

A Toddler's Ultimate Bucket List of Day Trips from More Fun Mom another fun bucket list that is great for toddlers.

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Dinosaur Preschool Theme

Dinosaurs seem to be a very popular theme among preschool children. My boys love reading about dinosaurs and we have many favorite dinosaur theme picture books. Each Monday on Ready-Set-Read, I am compiling books to accompany various preschool themes. This week, I am exploring the dinosaur preschool theme. While there are many, many books that would fit the dinosaur theme, these are some of my favorite dinosaur books that have worked especially well with the preschool reading level. Clicking on the book cover will take you to the book on Amazon for your convenience. These are affiliate links.

How do Dinosaurs...  Series by Jane Yolen To begin a dinosaur theme book list, I feel like I have to begin with Jane Yolen. Yolen has many books featuring dinosaurs. In Yolen's books, dinosaurs deal with bedtime, going to school, cleaning their rooms, celebrating holidays and more. The illustrations in the book, by artist Mark Teague, label each dinosaur. The books are great for dealing with preschool behavior, but don't give any information about dinosaurs.

Another series of books that uses dinosaurs to focus on preschool topics, are the Dinosaur Vs. Books. These books, like Dinosaur Vs. The Potty, by Bob Shea tell a story about a dinosaur who doesn't think he needs to use the potty. The obnoxious dinosaur jumps around and roars. Preschoolers will love "roaring" along with the dinosaur. (And what's a dinosaur unit without roaring?) Again, this series, will not teach facts about dinosaurs but they are fun for kids to explore during a theme study.

Digging Up Dinosaurs (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) by Aliki follows a child through a museum of dinosaurs. As the reader moves through the book, he/she can read simple facts about dinosaurs on each page. Along with the main text, there are speech bubbles to listen in on conversations in the museum. Some of the conversations are educational, others are entertaining! This is a good book for introducing names of dinosaurs, types of dinosaurs, and the concepts of extinction and paleontology.

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton is a wonderful "first" dinosaur book. In Dinosaurs Dinosaurs, Barton provides simple, brightly colored drawings of dinosaurs with simple descriptive text. For example, "There are dinosaurs with horns." This book is great for preschoolers to learn to understand the descriptive words without having to cover all of the details. In the front and back endpages, the book provides clear pictures with labeled names and pronounciation guides for kids who want to know more.


Dinosaur!  by Peter Sis is a wordless story about an imaginative boy and his toy dinosaur. The book begins with bathtime. The boy takes his toy dinosaur into the bath, and suddenly, a dinosaur pops out of the water. Gradually, larger and larger dinosaurs begin to appear around the bath. The boy gets smaller and smaller. The book opens to a three page spread, to fit all of the large dinosaurs. As the page turns, the boy's mother comes rushing with a towel, and bath time-- and play time-- are over. The bathroom is covered with water! Judging from how our bathroom looks after bathtime, I wonder if my boys have had dinosaurs visiting??



   Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs (Harry and the Dinosaurs) Harry finds a bucket of old dinosaurs in Gran's attic. "Dinosaurs don't belong in boxes," says Harry. Harry washes the dinosaurs, puts them in a bucket, and takes them everywhere he goes. Until one day, Harry mistakenly leaves the dinosaurs on the train. But he knows how to get them back. I believe this book was originally published as Sammy and the Dinosaurs We've been reading that one since Logan was 2! Follow the link to an old post with a book activity and a picture of little Logan!
There are several other Harry and the Dinosaur books. My boys really liked Harry and the Dinosaurs Say 'Raahh!'. which was a fun story about Harry taking his bucket of dinosaurs to visit the dentist for the first time.

 I Dreamt I was a Dinosaur is an easy to handle board book. Each page features a different dinosaur and names it alliteratively, for example, the Stegosaurus is named "Sammy Stegosaurus." According to the book, "The illustrations were prepared in antique fabrics and felt with sequins, buttons, beads, and assorted bric-a-brac." Which would be completely awesome... if you could actually feel that. However, I guess it was too costly to mass produce books with antique fabric and  bric-a-brac. (I love that word). So the book is just pictures of those things. Check out the dinosaur craft project we did to make our own dinosaur touch and feel book after reading this book.

Last week, I asked for recommendations of favorite dinosaur picture books on my facebook page.  Laura, from The Seeds Network, recommended this last dinosaur book, Dinosaur Roar! It looks so fun. Make sure you check out the video in the post. My boys loved the book and boogie dance that went with the book. This is a great book for teaching preschoolers about opposites.


Dinosaur Roar (Picture Puffins) Dinosaurs of every shape and size race, roar, and stomp through this colorful book of opposites. And where are all these silly-looking creatures off to? A dinosaur picnic, of course! These prehistoric pranksters and the simple, playful rhymes that accompany them will delight children everywhere.

Do you have a favorite book for teaching preschoolers about dinosaurs? Leave it in the comments or join our discussion on facebook.

If you are looking for more book lists to accompany preschool themes, check out my books by theme page, and follow my preschool themes pinterest board for activities and books.