Art Matters– Exploring the work of Henri Matisse with young learners.
Happy Saturday, everyone! I hope that everyone's year is off to a fantastic start and that you are starting to find your groove.…
Developing a Growth Mindset in young learners
Hello everyone! We just finished our first week in the 2017-2018 school year and I have got to tell you, we had the most…
2017-2018 Kindergarten Classroom Reveal
Hello friends! I hope that you are doing well and that you are enjoying this "back to school season." I can't believe it but this year…
Teaching Young Learners How To Make A Plan
(This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.) Hello everyone! I don't know about you, but my summer has flown by! From teaching…
STEM!
Hello friends! The last two weeks my friend and I have been running a STEM camp for 5-10 year olds at my school.…
Exploring Coding With Kindergarteners (with and without technology)
As I began planning for this year, I realized that introducing my students to coding was a 21st century skill that I needed to teach.…
Engaging Activities When Studying The Moon
If you caught my last blog post (you can read it here), you know that a few weeks ago we transformed our classroom…
A journey into space!
At the very beginning of the school year, I showed my students a video taken from the International Space Station. Oftentimes, teachers will ask…
Crayola inspired PBL in kindergarten! (Goodbye Dandelion!)
Have y'all heard that Crayola is retiring a crayon from their box of 24 crayons? When I heard this news, I thought that this…
The beginning of a plant inquiry
Hello friends! I hope that this post finds you well. We are currently in the middle of a giant plant inquiry. This year, I…
Our Butterfly Inquiry
For the past two weeks we have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly in our kindergarten classroom. It all started…
Engaging hands-on activities to help you gear up for spring!
I know that it is not officially spring yet, but it certainly feels like it here in Austin, TX. I currently have my…
A Montessori Monday Post- Nouns and Verbs
I was asked by several people to start a weekly series on Montessori materials/lessons/activities that I use in my classroom. As an aside,…
“Follow The Child” — A Simple Valentine’s Day Activity
This past week my students have been non-stop talking about Valentine's Day. To be honest, I wasn't planning on doing anything big for…
A Reggio-inspired inquiry on Lunar New Year and Chinese culture
This past week we celebrated the Lunar New Year in my classroom and explored Chinese culture and traditions. It was such a fun-filled…
Studying the human body with kindergarteners
This year, my students were very interested in learning about the ways their bodies worked. We spent about three weeks learning about our five…
Polar Express Day 2016
This past Friday was our annual Polar Express Day. This is by far one of my favorite traditions. This year it ended up…
Learning in December with the help of the Gingerbread Man
December is here and my kindergarten students are excited, energized, and loving our newest theme. They came in on December 1st to find our dramatic…
Wampanoag activities for your Thanksgiving unit
One of my favorite things to do is to watch documentaries. I like them even more when they are documentaries about chefs and…
6 easy steps for effective guided reading lessons
I know I say this often and about many things, but guided reading is one of my favorite times during our day. During…
STEM activities in November
I love that STEM education is getting so much attention these days. Incorporating STEM activities in your classroom helps your students develop problem…
Exploring Owls With Kindergarteners
Hello Friends! We just finished a really fun week of learning all about owls. My students this year are very intrigued by birds.…
Exploring shapes with kindergarteners
I have found that when teaching kindergarten, at many times throughout the year I loop back around to concepts to help my students dig…
Learning About Our Community
Helping young students understand how they relate to the world they live in is a common Social Studies standard. It also helps students…
Our kindergarten apple orchard!
Happy Fall! In Texas it definitely does NOT feel like the season has changed but I have high hopes that sweatshirt and boot…
The first part of our kindergarten bird inquiry
The other day, one of my students brought in two bird nests that her family had found on their property. She proudly shared…
Kindergarten Activities To Go Along With “The Little Red Hen”
This past Friday marked our 9th day of school and I am happy to say, we are having an absolute blast. This particular…
What goes on during the first week in our kindergarten classroom?
The first week of kindergarten is in the books. We had a lot of fun getting to know one another and discovering new…
Classroom Reveal 2016-2017
Hello everyone! I hope that you had a fabulous week! For those of you who already have a few days of the school…
Tutorial: How to dye beans for your sensory table
Hello everyone! This morning I was dying beans for my new group of kindergarteners and thought I would write a quick tutorial on…
Getting Ready For A New Year
Hello everyone! I hope that you are enjoying your last few days of summer. For us here in Texas, the first day of…
Beginning Of The Year Literacy Centers And Activities
The beginning of kindergarten is such a fun time. Ok, honestly, if I wrote this post at the end of May when our…
Using Student Portfolios In A Kindergarten Classroom
Last year I changed the way that I did student portfolios and it was a HUGE success. I posted a few pictures on…
5 Tried And True Morning Meeting Activities (for kindergarteners)
I absolutely love using a morning meeting to begin our day. In the book it says, "morning meetings help to create a climate…
Breaking Down The Day (Part 1: The First 30 Minutes)
The first thirty minutes of the day are essential in my classroom because they set the tone for the rest of the day. During…
Student-led inquiries: Project work with young learners
I love the summer because it allows me the time to reflect on the year that just finished and read a ton of…
Guided Math In Kindergarten
Last summer I was tasked by my school to write a guided math curriculum for both kindergarteners and first grade students. These curriculums…
Incorporating Reggio methods in a “traditional” school setting
The Reggio-style of teaching has truly captivated my heart. Over the past year I have tried to implement many "Reggio" methods into my…
Ocean activities for young learners
I can not get over how quickly this year flew by. We are down to only 4 days left and I am so…
Engaging lessons on tide pools
This week we began a new unit on tide pools. As some of my students have never visited the ocean, the first day we…
Following my students’ interests to DINOSAURS
We have had an absolute BLAST studying dinosaurs these last two weeks. My students are SO into them and I am ashamed to…
It’s SPRING! Take this science activity outside!
I don't know about where you live, but here in Texas, we are experiencing a BEAUTIFUL spring!! Each day we are finding new…
Using informational texts during guided reading in kindergarten
We have been working so very hard during guided reading these last few months. My students are doing such a great job at…
Hands-on activities when studying storms
In Science, our objective this past week was, "students will observe, describe, and illustrate objects in the sky such as the clouds and Sun."…
Turning a picture book into a play to review the sequence of events
The last few weeks we have really been working on retelling the sequence of events in a story. We have done this a…
Stone Soup
One of the literary "big ideas" that we have been focusing on during our read alouds is that we can retell the sequence of events…
A new take on whole group math
A few weeks ago, I was able to attend the kindergarten SDE conference in Austin, TX. I had the privilege to listen to…
Using a rainy day to inspire writing
In Texas, we don't often get a rainy day that we can enjoy. However, last week, we got to enjoy not one, but…
Exploring rocks and minerals with young learners (part two)
(As this post is fairly long, I have broken it up into multiple pages, as a quick reference, at the bottom of each…
Part One: A Student-Led Inquiry About Rocks And Geodes
About a month ago, while we were on the playground, our students became fascinated with collecting rocks. Day by day, students would run up…
Subtraction Lessons Kindergarteners LOVE!
During Math we have been working very hard at solving subtraction equations. As most kindergarten students do, mine love anything that involves play dough, acting, or…
American Symbols
Part of our Social Studies standards require that we teach our kindergarten students about American symbols and famous presidents. This is not one…
Number of the day– in kindergarten
Two months ago I incorporated a new routine into our day. We call it, "Number Of The Day." During this time, my students…
A Kindergarten Unit On China
A few of our Social Studies standards in Texas require us to teach students to understand different cultures and traditions. (11) Culture. The student understands similarities…
Using Provocations In Your Kindergarten Classroom
I have been using a lot of Reggio-inspired practices this year in my classroom and am so very happy with the results that…
A Kindergarten Unit on Castles
The past three weeks we have been learning all about Medieval Times in our kindergarten classroom. My students had shown a huge interest…
Exploring Sound With Kindergarteners
We just finished a unit exploring light and sound. If you would like to read about the light inquiry, you can do so here. Today,…
Exploring Capacity With Kindergarteners
Capacity: the maximum amount something can contain. In order to teach my students this term, I purchased four new sensory tubs from Amazon.com.…
Exploring Three Dimensional Shapes In Kindergarten
For the last 2 weeks my kindergarten students have been really digging deep to recognize, name, and define three dimensional shapes. To do…
Exploring Light In Kindergarten
{This blog post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.} This past week my kindergarteners explored light. They enjoyed our unit SO…
Adding PLAY To Your Guided Reading Groups
As a teacher we want our students to LOVE to read. We want our students to devour good books and to become amazing little readers.…
Teaching Kindergarteners To Write Narratives
This year, one of my professional goals was to get better at teaching my students to write. At the beginning of the summer,…
Simple activities to make your Arctic unit come to life!
I love teaching because every year, every month, and every day I get to learn something new. I get to see the joy…
Polar Express Day 2015
First of all, Merry, Merry Christmas from all of mine (minus those who were sick with strep throat this past week) to all of…
A few of our favorite things
Two years ago I switched grades from first to kindergarten. I was excited to make the change since I had previously taught kindergarten for…
A Quick Game To Practice Sight Words
Hi Friends! Today I wanted to share a SUPER quick and easy game that we play often in my classroom. To practice ANY…
Teaching Kindergarteners to “Make 5”
The past week during guided math we have been diligently working on "making 5." To do this, we have played many games. The…
Hands-on Ways To Practice Patterns In December
One of the math skills that we are currently working on in my classroom is reviewing patterns. We have already mastered repeating patterns…
Why teaching handwork is still important (and a giveaway!!)
As many of you know, the afternoons in my kindergarten classroom are a very special time for us. During what we call "Exploratory…
An Easy Way To Increase Engagement: Rally Coach
One of my favorite ways to increase engagement is to use Kagan structures. I was beyond blessed that when I was in college…
Following My Students’ Interests… To Africa
My students are obsessed with endangered animals. I honestly have never seen a group of kids so INTO a topic. While learning about…
What Goes On During Our Math Block?
Many people often ask me what my classroom looks like during our math block. I thought today I'd give you a brief tour…
Making Magic Potions
For our Friday experiment last week, my students entered our classroom to find, silver platters set out with intriguing science tools. They "oooohhhed…
Using pumpkins to teach math
The week before Halloween, my school enjoys "Spirit Week." Every day has its own theme and the kids (and teachers!) come dressed accordingly.…
Fun In October
We have been having a BLAST with our October activities. With Halloween just around the corner, here are a few fun things you…
We Are Authors
For the last two weeks we have been working very hard at writing books about what we know about. We culminated the process…
Patterns, Patterns, Patterns!
This past week, during math centers/investigations, my students were presented with a question. "Can you make a pattern?" They each selected a material…
What have we been up to during Guided Math?
I must say, I am so very grateful that I created a year's worth of guided math plans this past summer. It has…
Art Matters In Our Kindergarten Classroom
Art is a great way to help your students develop language skills, strengthen their fine motor muscles, develop their sense of self, and explore…
Our Latest STEM/STEAM Activity
Many studies have found that current graduates are lacking the essential skills they need to problem solve. For this reason, there has been…
Activities During Our Forest Inquiry
We currently are knee-deep in our forest inquiry. Throughout the week, my students came up with some great wonders! Here are a few things…
Math In September
This week we continued our Forest Inquiry. My students are absolutely loving learning about forests, leaves, trees, and forest animals. To bring our…
Letting go and watching them soar
We are currently on our 22nd day of school. For the past few weeks, we have been hard at work learning routines, procedures,…
Kindergarten: where young scientists are born
This week we began the journey on a four - six week inquiry. I'm excited and my students are even more excited. Basically,…
Community Helper Fun!
This past week my class learned ALL about community helpers. Each day we studied a particular helper and did activities that went along with…
Exploratory Centers– A Case For Play
Every afternoon, I set aside 30-45 minutes for my students to explore items, activities, and experiences in my classroom. I'm sure many of…
Making a Bible Lesson Come To Life With Science
The first Bible lesson that I always teach my class is the story of Creation. This year was no exception. In order to…
Whole Group Math Mini Lesson Fun!
This week we have been working on learning the numbers 1-6. I wanted these lessons to be as hands-on and interactive as possible.…
Getting Your Guided Math Groups Started In Kindergarten
Guided Math is such an important part of our day in kindergarten. This is where my young mathematicians get the small group attention that…
Teaching kinders to sit at the meeting place
This week we finished up our first week of school. I am already IN LOVE with my new group of kinders. They are…
Meet the Teacher
This past week has been a whirlwind! Not only did I present during our staff's inservice week, but the week culminated with our…
Bringing Inquiry Into Your Classroom
This summer I have done a lot of research on bringing inquiry and exploration into my classroom. I have been reading books, articles,…
Setting Up My Kindergarten Classroom and Tackling Storage
This past week I spent some time in my new kindergarten classroom. I don't know about you, but it takes me SO much…
Setting the Tone The First Week of School
I don't know about you, but I am starting to feel the pressure of heading back to school. This upcoming week I am…
Assessments and Data
With just a few short weeks of summer left, I am trying to prepare as much as I can before the back to…
Integrating Science Into Your Day–Finding The Time
People often ask me, "How do you fit everything in?!?" I understand why. It is so very hard to fit everything you want…
Guided Reading At The Beginning Of The Year (kindergarten)
I often get questions asking me how I store all of my centers and classroom materials. I am in a little bit of…
Classroom management without clip charts and extrinsic rewards
Last year I finished my 12th year of teaching. Over the last 12 years I have seen many behavior management trends come and…
Fostering Independence At Centers
It's no surprise that small group instruction is essential when trying to meet the needs of all of the learners in your classroom. However,…
How to set up a morning meeting in your kindergarten classroom
A few years ago, I dabbled in using a morning meeting in my first grade classroom. I wrote my students a message every…
