Our First Grade Weather Inquiry – Part Five: Green Screen Weather Reports
As a culmination for our weather inquiry, my students applied all that they had learned and became meteorologists! They LOVED this so much. …
Our First Grade Weather Inquiry – Part Four: Extreme Weather
Hello everyone! I'm back to share with you the extreme weather portion of our three week weather inquiry. After studying clouds, rain, and wind,…
Our First Grade Weather Inquiry – Part Three: Exploring Wind!
W I N D! Boy did we have fun exploring wind! Earlier in the summer I had seen a wind tunnel on Instagram and…
Our First Grade Weather Inquiry – Part Two: Exploring Rain!
Hello Friends! After our week studying clouds (you can click here in case you missed that blog post) we dove into learning about…
Our First Grade Weather Inquiry – Part One: Clouds
Hello everyone! It is a wet and rainy day here in TX which is perfect for blogging about our weather unit that we…
Letting Young Learners Investigate The Question: How Does The Setting Influence A Story?
This past week we explored how the setting can influence and affect a story. In order to make this come to life for my…
Teaching students how understanding our emotions can help us better understand characters in books
Hello everyone and happy September! Man, it has been a very long time since I have last blogged and for that I apologize.…
Studying Frogs With Kindergarteners
A few days ago our classroom was given tadpoles to watch, care for, and observe. My young learners were SO excited to dig…
Spring has sprung– and so have spring inquiries!!
Good Morning everyone! I hope that this post finds you well. This past week we have been studying all things spring (in the…
Mario Day!
Hello friends! On Friday we had SUCH a fun day! The first grade teacher and I had asked our principal if it would…
A Kindergarten Unit On Ancient Egypt
Hello friends! One of my students asked me if we could learn about ancient Egypt so this past week we have been having…
Activities For A Dinosaur Day
We just finished up a week learning about dinosaurs and boy did we have A BLAST! As this was the week before our…
Exploring Simple Machines With Kindergarteners
Good morning, friends! We have been having so much fun this past week exploring simple machines as our STEM focus. Throughout the week…
Our Kindergarten Unit On Antarctica Continues!
Hello everyone! I hope that y'all are doing well. Last week I blogged about the beginning of our Antarctica unit (you can read…
A Journey To Antarctica
I don't know about you, but every now and again, I like to switch up my "typical" units. Even though I love teaching them, for…
Exploring Rocks
This past week and a half we have been exploring rocks. My kindergarteners are absolutely loving this unit and many of them told…
A new take on exploring our 5 senses
If you look at any of the kindergarten standards, again and again it comes up that students will use their five senses to…
Learning about our amazing skeletal system in kindergarten
I love how inquisitive young learners are. I love that they naturally want to ask why and dig deep to find the answers…
Kindergarten Christmas STEM activities– Our Christmas guide continues!
We have been having so much fun completing these Christmas STEM activities. Even though December is in full effect (as well as a…
A Christmas Activity Guide For Kindergarteners– Part 1
I don't know about you, but I absolutely love this time of the year! I love driving around at night and seeing the…
Engaging and fun Thanksgiving activities for kindergarteners
With fall in full effect and Thanksgiving only days away, we have been having a blast in our classroom. As the change from…
Exploring Pumpkins
Hello everyone! I know that the season of exploring pumpkins is coming to a close this year, but we had too much fun for…
A Week Of Spiders!
This past week we had SO much fun learning all about spiders. Our week was jam packed with activities, reading, crafts, and more.…
Vet Day– A classroom “flip” in a kindergarten classroom
The past few weeks we have been learning about our community and community helpers. On Thursday, I transformed our classroom into a veterinarian's…
STEM: Block Play In Kindergarten
Every afternoon, we end our day with 45-60 minutes of uninterrupted play time. In our classroom, we call this "exploration centers." During this…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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,…
Developing Independent Kindergarteners- Part 1
Let me begin this post with two words: Independent Kindergarteners Two words that often are not put together in August. In fact, now, in June,…
How to: Guided Math
Each year, at the close of the school year, I like to reflect back on things that worked in the previous year. This…
Oceans, Islands, and Waves OH MY!
This week we are learning all about the Ocean and BOY OH BOY are we having a blast!! I am so glad that…
What have we been up to?
The last few weeks have been SUPER hectic. You know how it goes. However, I just HAVE to share some of the FUN…
Math In May
Can you believe it is already May?! Where has the time gone?? At one point today I stopped to take in the quiet…
Plant and Earth Day Activities
If you read my last blog post, I promised to tell y'all about the rest of our Earth Day and plant unit activities.…
Earth Day Activities
This past week we have been gearing up for Earth Day. We have been learning all about plants and our world. To make…
Morning Activities for 4 and 5 year olds
I am very thankful to teach in a school that understands that young learners need time to explore and engage in tasks. Every…
Hands-on lessons for young students about rocks!
The past week we have continued our study on the Earth. This week we focused on the "land." Throughout the week, my students…
Peter Rabbit helps with teen numbers!
If you are anything like me, there are certain picture books that stand out as your absolute favorite childhood stories. I distinctly remember…
Gearing up for Earth Day!
The past two weeks, my class has been gearing up for Earth Day. We have been having a blast each afternoon as we learn…
