How can we re-imagine a soft start for social distancing in classrooms? This morning routine is critical for community building and can be adapted for social distancing with a few small tweaks. Like it or not, many of us need to incorporate social distancing into our teaching this year. This definitely puts a kink in many of our normal plans – it’s hard to envision centers, partner work, and soft starts with social distancing. When I first started hearing about […]
Continue ReadingThe Best Tips for Teaching Procedures in the Classroom
Need tips for teaching procedures in the classroom? Learn what classroom routines you should teach and step by step methods to teach these procedures. Classroom procedures are the heart of strong classroom management. Having clear routines helps students know what to do and frees up the teacher’s energy for in-the-moment instructional decisions. Teaching these procedures in the classroom needs to start from Day 1 – and then revamped periodically, as needed. I remember the first year I had 1:1 iPads. […]
Continue ReadingHow to Make Morning Meeting Activities Fun in Kindergarten
Discover engaging morning meeting activities for kindergarten.. Get ideas for morning greetings, sharing, activities and news, to support a strong classroom community. I don’t know about you, but the reason I went into teaching was the kids. I love positive interactions with children – they bring me great joy! The periods of distance teaching during the pandemic reinforced that for me. It was painful to cut back on these critical interactions! The joy of positive interactions with kids helped me […]
Continue ReadingMake a Kid-Friendly Attendance Chart for Kindergarten
Make attendance easy with a simple attendance chart for kindergarten. This quick classroom routine simplifies your morning and reinforces key skills. Attendance. It’s one of those daily details of classroom life. Day in. Day out. You need to do it, but you don’t want it to take any more time and energy than necessary. I understand why it’s important. I’ve been on the receiving end of the office calls a few more times than I like to admit. “Mrs. D., […]
Continue ReadingUse Question of the Day on Seesaw
Tips for how to use a daily Question of the Day using the Seesaw app with kindergarten and first grade students. Includes a Seesaw tutorial for adding daily attendance questions. Even in an online classroom, it’s critical to build a sense of community and daily routines. Question of the Day can still be part of the daily morning meeting routine in a virtual classroom. It just requires a few little adaptations to make it work. You can create your own […]
Continue Reading9 Simple But Fun Math Games for Kids
Learn about fun and simple math games for kids in school and at home. I am a huge game nut! As a child I spent countless hours playing board games and card games with my family. At the time, I thought it was just a great way to pass the time. As soon as we declared we were “bored” my mom was ready with a new list of chores. Turns out that 3 hour game of Monopoly wasn’t so bad […]
Continue ReadingFall Dramatic Play Center Ideas
Fall means back to school and one of my favorite back to school activities is setting up my dramatic play center for fall. This is my favorite place in my classroom! I’m always amazed at how creative my students are in the dramatic play area – they use the materials in ways I never even considered. Personally, I like to start the year with a simple kitchen set up. This is a scene that is familiar to all students in […]
Continue ReadingClassroom Community for Distance Learning
Thanks to COVID-19 and the resulting school closures, teachers are facing many new challenges in teaching. One of these challenges is building classroom community with distance learning. How do you build a sense of community with kids when you aren’t physically with them? We know classroom community helps students feel comfortable and ready to learn. But, it is hard to support classroom community with distance learning – especially with young kids. We can’t read their body language as easily, can’t […]
Continue ReadingSummer Dramatic Play Center Ideas
Summer time invokes visions of camping, trips to the beach, and visits from the ice cream truck. Children and adults long to take advantage of the warm weather every chance they get. But sometimes you are stuck inside during the lovely summer weather. I remember one May when it was gorgeous outside and it felt like an early summer (which is not always the case in the Midwest.) School was still in session, so we were all stuck inside for […]
Continue ReadingSpring Dramatic Play Center Ideas
I remember one spring I was struggling with spring dramatic play center ideas. I finally settled on a school theme. I set out some favorite books from the year (easy, repetitive stories), a few simple big books, and added a pointer for the “teacher” to use. Then I stepped back and watched. The students loved it! As I watched them play, it was like looking in a mirror – they had adopted my teacher language and mannerisms. I kept hearing […]
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