“Summertime and the living is easy…” – from the folk opera Porky & Bess, George & Ira Gershwin, 1937 Summertime was anything but easy for those students who habitually spent part of their vacation back in school. Now that school has been dismissed for summer vacation, I recall spending many summers, in the stifling heat, making-up for what I hadn’t done during the year. School started
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This summer myself and my daughter participated in a cool activity called the “Summer Book Exchange” (hosted by –The Educators’ Spin On It) – where we were paired up with another blogger to exchange a book and activities with each other to promote Summer reading. We then read the book and do the activities that were sent to us and blog about it. It’s
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The summer book study of “The Read-Aloud Handbook: Seventh Edition” by Jim Trelease, is underway! To learn about how the book study works, view our earlier post. Use the guide below to find the Chapter Reviews and special author Q&A posts. The Book Study Chapter Review Guide Chapter 1: Why Read Aloud? – Brick by Brick Chapter 2: When to Begin (and End) Read-Aloud –
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We are again looking forward to participating in a summer book study, hosted by Vanessa at Pre-K Pages! Our book for this summer’s study is “The Read-Aloud Handbook: Seventh Edition” by Jim Trelease, which will provide teachers, parents and caregivers with insights on the value of reading aloud, tips on ways to read aloud, and (YAY!) a list of great read aloud books! The
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Here are a list of good books you can read to the children in your home or classroom in celebration of Earth Day, or anytime you want to talk about recycling and conservation. The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle This book follows how plastic bottles are made, how they get recycled, and some of the things they can be recycled into. The EARTH book
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We continue to provide some resources for those planning an outdoor a Field Day event, here the children rotate through a variety of gross motor activities and spend most of the morning outside playing and working together. It is a great day, but definitely requires planning to make sure it goes smoothly. We put together some of our tips for planning a successful Preschool Field
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A post from veteran educator and interview coach Charlie Margolis. “We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.” – Eric Hoffer, (1902-1983) American social philosopher, author They were the talented kids; the athletes who ran fast and far, seemingly without effort. He was the kid in art class
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Here’s a simple and fun activity we did with our preschoolers to help learn about the shapes of objects throughout our classroom. We took them on a <strong>SHAPE HUNT</strong> by creating outlines of various objects around the room onto some construction paper. For our 3 year olds, I put 3 shapes per paper, and each child had their own paper. Before sending them on
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After seeing an idea for math mats in a magazine, I decided to make some and laminate them for use at our school. Preschoolers can practice counting and shape building with these mats using a variety of different materials. Providing different materials at different times can reinforce and scaffold learning. Here are a few examples of the ways we have used math mats! Using
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This is a great scientific experiment to do with young children to talk about how different liquids react, and to learn about color names and color blending. First, we poured milk into a shallow bowl. Using three different food colors – we placed a drop or two of each on opposite ends of the bowl. Be sure to add the drops carefully, so they don’t splash.
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