Preschooler's Busy Book: 365 Fun, Creative, Screen-Free Activities to Stimulate Your Preschooler Every Day of the Year!, Paperback

The Preschooler's Busy Book should be required reading for anyone raising or teaching preschool-age children, it is written with warmth and sprinkled with humor and insight.

Preschooler's Busy Book book contains 365 screen-free activities (one for each day of the year) for three- to six-year-olds using things found around the home. It shows parents, baby-sitters, and day-care providers how to:

--Save money by making your own paints, play dough, craft clays, glue, paste and other arts and crafts supplies.

--Learn how to expand your child's arts and crafts horizons by learning how to print with rollers and sponges, make super goop and silly putty, make a paper-mache pinata, a Chinese lantern, gingerbread people, a jellybean picture, play dough jewelry, spoon people, a pinwheel, a paper bag kite, party hats, an egg-carton butterfly, a noodle necklace, a feather headband, or a paper doll chain.

--Prevent boredom during even the longest stretches of rainy or cold weather with ideas for indoor play like newspaper golf, magnet magic, the listening game, red light/green light, and hand puppets.

--Help children learn to have fun in the kitchen making fruit kebabs, popsicles, homemade peanut butter, a happy-face sandwich, alphabet cookies, animal pancakes, finger Jell-O, popcorn ball creatures, and the best chocolate chip cookies in the whole world.

--Teach your child practical skills like setting the table, putting away the silverware, sorting socks, sewing practice, and carpentry (hammering golf tees into Styrofoam, with a toy hammer).

--Introduce your child to numbers and counting with activities like ``One-Two, Buckle My Shoe,`` telling time, coin and stamp collecting, sorting a mixed-up deck of cards by numbers and learning how to find today's date on a calendar.

--Prepare your child for reading by working on an alphabet puzzle, making alphabet cookies, making an alphabet book, and connecting the dots in alphabetical order to make a picture.

--Get your child started with music and rhythm by making a pie-plate tambourine, keeping the rhythm to a song on the radio with homemade rhythm blocks or shakers, or make music with musical glasses (filled with different amounts of water).

--Get your child moving with circle dances like ``Hokey Pokey,`` ``Skip to My Lou`` ``Ring Around the Rosie,`` and ``London Bridge.``

--Encourage your child to enjoy quiet activities like reading wordless picture books, working on puzzles, and watching clouds--and then drawing them.

--Introduce children to nature with a variety of outdoor adventures from nature walks and picnics to backyard camping, bird feeding, mud painting and making waxed leaves.

--Start children growing things by planting apple seeds, avocado seeds or garlic cloves; or learning how to grow carrots, beets or sweet potatoes by putting cuttings into water.

--Celebrate holidays and other occasions with special projects and activities for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Easter and Passover.

--Keep children occupied on car trips by playing ``I See A-B-C`` or reciting ``30 Days Hath September.