lesson plan

  • spring themes

    Topics to Explore in Spring

    Spring offers so many relevant topics to explore, so I wanted to put together a list with some old favorites and some new ideas – we all need to shake things up every now and then. Doesn’t looking at this graphic just give you ALL the spring feels?! This also gave me a ton of new ideas, I’ve got some work to do! Here’s the full list of 30 different themes, the ones that I currently have resources available for are linked. 1. Rain 2. Gardening 3. Seeds 4. Flowers 5. St. Patricks day 6. Easter 7. Weather gear 8. Bugs 9. Wind 10. Plants 11. Water cycle 12. Recycling…

  • Preschool president's day

    President’s Day with Preschoolers

    President’s day can pose a challenge for preschool teachers because so many of the concepts that we connect with commemorating this day are extremely abstract for young children. They don’t understand history, what it means to live in a certain country, or the job of a president. In many cases, not only are these concepts difficult for children to grasp, they also aren’t relevant to their day to day experiences. There are still some great ways to acknowledge President’s day and help children make connections that increase their understanding – here are my favorite President’s day lessons. I’ve created a couple of vocabulary sets that help children have the words…

  • Friday Freebie – Lesson Planning

    Happy Friday! We’ve officially made it through the first week of 2018, maybe by the end of next week I’ll remember to write 2018 instead of 2017. Today’s freebie is a set of lesson plan formats for the preschool classroom. I am a huge advocate for making your lesson plan work for you, and I think that you should set in up in a way that is actually helpful, or else you’ll find yourself doing extra work.  This set has a variety of templates so that you can select the one that fits your class structure the best.  For more on using these different templates be sure to check out…

  • Ways to make lesson planning easier!

    I’m one of those weird teachers – you know, the ones who love lesson planning.  I love every part of it – analyzing what my student needs, finding new ideas, writing the plans, prepping materials – I love it! I’ve also come up with a number of ways to make lesson planning easier.  Since many of you have probably begin to think about your first few weeks of the school year, and the rest of you are probably preparing to do things a little differently in the fall, I want to share some of the things that have been most helpful for me. The one thing that has been the…

  • A little reflection

    I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, I know I’m taking some much needed time to relax (and do lots of shopping)!  The end of the year is the perfect time to think about what went well this year, and goals that we have going forward.  If you’re thinking about the rest of the year in your classroom and what it might look like I want to share some inspiration that might be helpful. Here are the top five posts from Preschool Ponderings this year: 1. Make your lesson plans work for you – This post has quickly become one of my most popular of all time because it includes…

  • Vacation Lesson Plan

    I don’t know about you, but summer weather makes me want to take a vacation! Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite work into my schedule at the moment, but I know I’m not the only one in need of a vacation, so I though It would be fun to plan a vacation themed week for the children too. Here is the lesson plan that I put together for vacation week: You can download a copy HERE! I created it to be somewhat generic because I want the children to help decide where your class will go on their pretend vacation, then you can tailor the activities to your destination.  Once your students pick…