Today we did a little cooking. I wanted to do gingerbread but just wasn’t in the mood for all that entails. My friend made hot cocoa with her kid’s the other day and I thought well — why not ?! So before we go getting all inspired realize that I helped them make it from […]
Who Dis?
The holidays are hard. Schedules are off. Good is different. Emotions are sometimes carried on our sleeve. Many teachers find these are the times to “buckle down “ and add more structure to keep the kids “ in line.” I find it more appropriate to expect less and give more time to just relax and […]
Christmas is a Comin’
Today I showed the children my Christmas decorations and we talked about how they would like to decorate our play areas. They loved my Santa collection I added our trees to the playroom. We had to move around the furniture. Anytime you move around furniture and toys it usually sparks a new interest in old […]
Happy Thanksgiving
Today has been a good day. We did our normal routine. Keeping things in a routine is important to children EVEN MORE on holidays. Those tend to be the days adults let children skip naps etc… raise your hand if you have ever regretted getting out of routine. You thought it would help. It had […]
Storytelling Through Music
Today we listened to stories through music as MrRandy played his guitar and sung. We watched music in motion on YouTube as dancers told a story through music. I later saw this being acted out in the outdoor classroom. We played charades too. That was fun. Storytelling through movement.
Storytelling Through Clay
Today we took the stories the children “ wrote” yesterday and tried making a representation from clay ( actually playdoh). I love the way we looked at the books and the main characters or props in the stories and the children decided what they would make. Rosemary wrote a story about how she going her […]
When you are a storyteller you can be an author too ! Today I dictated stories the children wrote and then they illustrated the pages.
When you give children opportunities to practice writing and drawing for fun this happened organically. Today was International Button Day. I’m sure you’ve caught on by now. I use days like this to create interest in the calendar, counting and letter recognition. Today we noticed that button starts with a B. We made a cute […]
Show and Tell
To this day I I am not completely back when they are put in front of an audience. There are just some personalities that are not comfortable talking in front of people. I think we begin to see those tendencies to emerge even as young children. Today was show and tell. It was more about […]
Heggerty Update
We are entering week 13 in our phonemic awareness program. It’s amazing to me how much the children attending their second year have picked up on being able to isolate onset sounds and ending sounds and segmenting words into syllables. If you are interested there are lots of videos on YouTube that explain the process […]
Trip trap trip trap
Today we enjoyed more storytelling. In family time I told the story of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” We watched the story on you tube. It had a different twist. Then we went outside for THREE HOURS. I thought I would facilitate some play based on our story but guess what ??! Your brilliant littles […]