personal

  • What I’m Working On

    I thought I’d pop in and share what I’ve been up to lately, these more personal posts are some of my favorites! Here’s what has been keeping me busy: Making felt food for my little one – so far I’ve finished 4 donuts Editing and formatting a leadership training for work Searching for cute and easy 4th of July play activities – last night I dyed pasta red, white and blue Preparing for a HOT weekend, it’s supposed to be 110 degrees here on Saturday, so I’ve stocked up on popsicles and water toys Designing a massive bulletin board Catching up on Southern Charm whenever possible Trying to stay off…

  • Personalized Puzzles

    One of my good friends started her own little tradition.  Every time she goes to a child’s first birthday party, she gets them one of these personalized name puzzles from Fat Brain Toys.  I absolutely love this idea! Each child receives a gift that is uniquely their own, and I can’t tell you how many children have learned to spell their names because they play with their puzzles so often.  The best part is that the buyer types in the child’s name, and then Fat Brain Toys creates it from that custom order – so there is no hunting down a name only to find that it doesn’t come in…

  • A little update

    I’ve been blogging here at Preschool Ponderings religiously since January of 2014.  By religiously I mean 4-6 posts each week, which I have always truly enjoyed writing and sharing with all of you.  This past year has definitely been the most difficult for me because #momlife, and I’m sure that if you follow along regularly you’ve noticed few posts with less regularity.  I took the last couple of weeks off from posting – which wasn’t planned, life just happened and there were some other things that I had to take care of.  I also used the time to reflect on what Preschool Ponderings will look like going forward.  Don’t worry,…

  • My Preschool Memories

    Teacher appreciation week seems like the perfect time to share what I actually remember from my own preschool experience. First off, I remember both of my preschool teachers and I remember how much I loved them! The rest of my memories are very random – which makes sense as they were probably the things that were most important to 3 and 4 year old me.  I remember that one of my teachers loved turtles and she had a turtle puppet that she would use to tell us stories. I remember that when there were thunderstorms, one of my teachers would tell us that God was dropping things (it was a…

  • Great Teacher Outfits

    One of my favorite posts that I’ve ever shared is a collection of my favorite clothes to wear to teach in. I published this post in 2014, so I figured it was time for an update. Here are the items that I find myself wearing over and over. This Swing Dress is the single most comfortable thing that I own.  It looks great with leggings, and mine is long enough to wear without leggings when the weather gets warmer. I ordered it from Amazon and there are a ton of colors and sleeve lengths available and it’s only $18.99! (Affiliate link) This LC Lauren Conrad top from Kohl’s is both…

  • What’s on my desk

    I did the “What’s in my bag” post a couple of weeks ago, and it got me thinking. As much as I love to see what others are carrying around with them, what’s sitting on your desk says just as much about you. I know that everyone I work with would absolutely agree with that statement.  So I took a picture of my desk: A lot of it is truly work-related stuff that no one would be interested in – calendars, contact information, to-do lists, etc.  I did want to share some of my favorite things though. The framed quotes are coloring pages from this book that I colored, the…

  • Personality and Teaching Styles

    The majority of my closest friends are teachers.  We are all very different people and I find it fascinating that we’ve all chosen the same field.  I also think that it’s really interesting to examine how our personalities impact the way that we teach.  For example, my best friend and I are both very focus on creating strong relationships with students, but we build those relationships in very different ways.  She engages her students in conversation like a friend, she is the teacher who is easy to talk to, a little loud, and a lot of fun.  On the other hand, I quietly let my students know that I’m paying…

  • What’s in my bag?

    I love these posts – maybe its because I’m a little nosy.  They’re my favorite to read and I love to write them too.  So let’s look in my work bag. I use a Vera Bradley Miller Bag , which is kind of huge.  It lets me keep my Kate Spade crossbody purse and my Vera Bradley lunchbox in it, along with all of this other stuff: (all links are affiliates) Plum Paper Planner Padfolio Laptop Vera Bradley Laptop Case Papermate Ink Gel Pens Papermate Flair Pens Gloves Umbrella Ear Buds FitBit Charging Cord Phone Charger Laptop Cord Bath & Body Works Hand Sanitizer Mary Kay Satin Hands Hand Cream…

  • 5 Tips for Staying Organized

    I read an article the other day – well, I don’t know if you could call it an article, it was more like one of those click-bait-ey facebook links where the content is only as important as whatever it takes to get you to see all of the ads.  But that’s not the point. Anyway, it was titled “Habits of highly organized people.” As I read it I found myself saying “I do that” over and over, which I guess means I’m highly organized.  The habits included in that particular article were a little vague though, so I thought I would share some of my organizational habits with you –…

  • 3 Words

    This is an interesting challenge: What 3 words describe you as a teacher? I really had to sit and think about this for a while, the words that immediately popped into my mind as far as adjectives that are generally used to describe me didn’t really seem to fit when I apply them to myself as a teacher – which is interesting in itself.  Here are the three words that I finally came up with: 1. Observant.  Not only did I regularly observe my students to gauge their interests and assess their level of understanding, I was also incredibly observant of their behaviors and emotions. If there was something going…