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 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.…
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.…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
