family
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Easy Kindergarten Readiness Activities
The most popular question that I used to get asked as a preschool teacher was “How can I make sure that my child is ready for kindergarten?” Of course there is not one thing that parents can work on with their preschooler, but they usually ask me this question when they don’t actually have time for a long conversation. So I created this workbook to share with parents. It includes simple activities that are easy for families to do and don’t require a ton of materials. This set includes 10 weeks worth of daily activities, one activity for each week day, which can be completed during the weeks between the end of…
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Tips for planning a trunk or treat
When trunk or treats first became a thing I didn’t really understand them, why do you need another opportunity to trick or treat? Let me tell you, as a parent I TOTALLY get it. My daughter’s child care program and her elementary PTO both host a trunk or treat annually and my favorite thing about these is that it seems like a safer option than trick or treating. The group of parents are people that we know and trust, and the safety piece is so much easier to manage. Of course there are other perks – more opportunities to wear those expensive costumes for one! Since I’ve been planning trunk…
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Building School Spirit
Preschool is often children’s first experience with school, and encouraging school spirit can really build a feeling of community for children and their families. If your school is associated with your local school district then you’ve got easy access to already defined school colors, mascots, and sports teams that you can really lean into. If you’re in a child care program you can still take advantage of many of these same things by partnering with your local district or creating your own set of spirit guidelines. Here are some excellent ways to use these with your families: Spirit wear fundraisers – get everyone geared up! T-shirts are standard offerings, and…
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Holidays in the classroom; What to do when you can’t celebrate
I’m the first person to say that I love celebrating holidays – in my personal life that’s definitely something that I’m known for, and it feels natural for me to incorporate that into the classroom. While it is something that I love, there are a variety of reasons that holidays might not be appropriate for the preschool classroom. Some programs don’t allow teachers and students to celebrate in order to create a space where all of the families that they serve feel welcome. Others have specific funding streams that require no holidays be acknowledged, and still others will eliminate these to support specific families and staff. These are all completely…
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Tips for Traveling with Preschoolers
If you’re like me, you get all kinds of questions from parents about tips for daily life with preschoolers. Our family is planning a road trip, and since we’ve gotten pretty good at traveling this way over the last few years I thought I’d share some tips that I’ve picked up along the way. Here are my top tips for traveling with preschoolers: Road trips can be a great way to travel with little ones because you can bring EVERYTHING with you, and they make getting there part of the adventure – with a little planning and grace.
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Easy way to share favorite preschool songs
I distinctly remember having a conferences with a parent who’s only request was the words to all of the songs that we sang in the classroom – she wanted to sing them with her son, but she couldn’t understand the words he was singing well enough to figure out what the songs were! I finally had a chance to put together a quick an easy resource that I could have shared with her, and I’m sharing it with you too. There are so many ways that this collection of common preschool songs can be used! There are two different pieces to this set. The ribbons all have a name of…
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Teacher and Mom Approved Lunch Packing Tips!
Before I dive into all things lunches, I have to take a minute to say THANK YOU! You’re all loving my Month of Preschool sets and I’m so excited that I’m able to make your life easier with these – I know how precious your time is and I hope that these are saving you time and energy that you’re able to re-focus on your students. If I could put a great big heart emoji here I totally would! I’m working on April as we speak, so it’s coming I promise! Let’s talk lunch packing… As a teacher, lunchtime was the bane of my existence. Here’s the thing, having families…
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10 Tips for Building Relationships with Families
When I started “Family February” I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to write that many posts about one topic – I should’ve known better. Not only are families a huge piece of the work that we do – because children’s lives are so highly influenced by the experiences of their families – but I also love love love family engagement. I know it’s technically March, but I want to wrap up my Family February with a little bit of a summary. So here are 10 tips for building those relationships with families: Be available – If a family member needs to talk to you find a…
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Writing letters to parents
At the beginning of the month I shared that one of my favorite ways to get to know children is to ask each parent to write you a letter about their child. I have often ended the school year by writing letters to each of my students, it a wonderful way to let them each know that they have been an important part of my year. I think it would also be a really great tradition to start writing letters to parents. I am constantly reminded that parents do not get enough credit for the wonderful things that they do for their children – if they get any credit at…
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Encouraging family members to visit the classroom
Here’s the dilemma, we want parents to take part in classroom events, but in most cases children are in our care because their parents are working – which means that they are not available to participate in activities. One way to make sure parents feel like they are a part of classroom events is to use technology to share photos and anecdotes – even when parents can’t be present, they will still feel like they know exactly what happened. Another creative solution is to encourage parents to share events with extended family members who may be able to attend. Grandparents might enjoy spending the afternoon with your class, and aunts,…
