Looking for a better morning routine?

How about a calmer start of the day with your preschooler?

Seeking for a way to begin your day with less morning television can be a tall order.

Getting our children to play more on their own can be a challenge. We wake up and are immediately on with a million tasks.

What if it didn’t have to be that way? What if I shared a way to connect with your children that also led to independent play?

Jump ahead and grab your activity cards here.

Here, I am going to share with you quick and easy activities to help calm your morning routine with just five minutes of prep.

I enjoy calling these, Breakfast Invitations: fun learning games for kids.

Simply put, this is a play invitation to:

Give caregivers a minute to wake up.
Help caregivers to prepare breakfast.
Allow caregivers to drink her morning beverage HOT.
Engage and excite your preschooler at their most influential time of the day to inspire play.

Want preschool ideas at your fingertips?

You will love our activity cards you can hold – or store on your phone! SEE THEM HERE.

Tell me more about Breakfast Invitations!

These Breakfast Invitations are ways to invite your toddler and preschoolers to practice something they have already mastered.

It is a time for your preschooler to have a hands-on review that will engage their thinking and distract them before everyone hits the ground running.

Breakfast Invitations plant the seeds that children will carry into their self-guided play.

Here are some of our most loved Breakfast Invitations

Prewriting Lines – Write with Movement

Ready to get your preschooler moving? Try this prewriting activity.

Now, I know, writing and moving your body are not typically seen together.

It’s a little like me asking you to add pickles to your ice cream.

But put the two together to help encourage your child to move left to right, along with seeing lines like straights, zigzags, and curves, and you’ve got magic.

Stack the Hearts

Rainbows and hearts. I had them at hello.

Once my boys, 3.5 and 5, heard rainbows and hearts, they both came running. Bummer, I thought. I should have made more. Not a bad problem to have because you can whip this up in minutes!

Toddler Block Box

If you are over there nodding your head like, “Yes!, Yes! I need this! Give me all the toddler Breakfast Invitations!”, You are going to LOVE this.

Providing your toddler a border may just buy you a little more time. I say may, because they are under two. They just learned to walk. Chances are, they don’t want to sit still. – and they shouldn’t.

But sometimes, mom needs a minute and Baby Block Box will do the trick.

Read toddler Block Box here.

Feed the Sharks

We all know that counting is important.

However, what is more, important is that children are touching the objects as they count.

By Kindergarten, children will be asked to understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.

But, what does this mean?!

What this means is that we want preschoolers to practice pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object.

How we do this, is we ask our children to TOUCH THE OBJECT as we COUNT ALOUD.

Read Feed the Sharks here

Phone Number Countup

I know the importance of my preschoolers knowing my phone number, and yet I continued to put it off.

Perhaps I was intimidated by the fact they would have to memorize a sequence of numbers, or if I felt like they weren’t ready. I am not sure why I was hesitant to start.

But you know what?

It took this introduction, plus a simple follow up to make it stick in a matter of days.

Read Phone Number Countup here

Fill the Empty Space

I’ll be the first to admit that Tetris is pretty addictive.

There is something about mixing the sizes and spaces that keeps me up all night, wondering how it all fits together. Call me crazy, but Tetris changed the way I see the area and volume of a shape.

So, when I first saw this idea on @bare.nutrients I knew that I needed to add it to our collection of Breakfast Invitations. There was something so compelling about finding the right sizes and shapes to fit into the empty space similar to a Tetris game. Talk about a game that generates thinking and conversation!

Read Fill the Empty Space here

Prewriting Rainbow

These counting/sorting/pattern bears are everything.

Now, I know you may be thinking, “What do we do with these bears?”. And here’s the thing. 95% of the time, all you do is open the storage container they are in, and your preschooler will handle the rest.

For the remaining 5%, come here. You are going to love Rainbow Prewriting just as much as you loved Bear Soup.

Read Prewriting the Rainbow here

Cut the Lines

Why is this so important?

Fine Motor Skills Practice Helps:

Control small muscles in your toddler’s hands
Coordinate eye-hand movement
Fine motor practice now will help with bigger movements later such as writing.

Think of small hand movements and grip as the numero uno skill. It is age-appropriate and basically sets the stage for what’s to come in elementary school.

Read Cut the Lines here

Highlighter Trace

The truth is, I’ve been itching to use highlighters with my boys.

Not only will highlighters help my three-year-old and four-year-old with their grip, but it will also zone in on paying attention to detail as they steady their hand along each curved and straight line. Remember when we talked about this here?

The other #momtruth is that I have reluctant writers.

I need to find additional ways to sneak in writing other than saying, “Please write your name here.” If this is the same for you, check out Magnetic Prewriting and Giant Alphabet Dot to Dot.

So I started thinking. How can I get my boys to “write” curved and straight lines? And here you have it—highlighter Drawings.

Read Highlighter Trace here

Name Posters

TIt turns out; block lettering is just as much fun to design as it was in high school.

The bonus? It helps with pencil grip and inspires creativity!

Read Name Posters here

Alphabet Sort

Ready for a hands-on way to better understand the letters of the alphabet?

I love being able to take something my preschooler sees daily and break it down to create more connections.

Even better is when the activity is fun, hands-on, and simple to set up. No worksheets here!

Read Alphabet Sort here

Bring Home the Bears

Grab the counting bears!

This fun Breakfast Invitation brings the bears from the left to right as your child also incorporates imaginary play.

Read Bring Home the Bears here

There are two more ways to have Breakfast Invitations at your fingertips!