teacher tips
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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 –…
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Under the weather
I’m pretty sure that it is the weather this week, but I have been in a nasty funk. This never-ending migraine and consuming desire to crawl back in bed have really put a damper on my holiday-loving attitude. When I’m not feeling well (but not quite sick enough to stay home), I’ve found that it generally best to let my students in on the fact that I’m a little under the weather. Preschoolers are just beginning to understand empathy – there are plenty of adult issues that they just can’t comprehend, but they know how awful if is to feel sick. When my students know that I’m a little under…
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Personalized Puzzles
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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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Ideas for sharing newsletters
It’s a fairly common problem, you print a copy of the classroom newsletter for each child and stick it in their mailbox, and then at the end of the year you clean out their mailboxes only to find all of those newsletters still in there. It’s no wonder the parents had no idea what was happening all year long! This frustrating problem is made even worse by knowing just how much time you spent writing each of those newsletters! I’ve sen this scenario play out time and time again – in my own classroom, and with a number of teachers that I work with, so unfortunately you are not alone.…
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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…
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Creating a Parent Donation List that gets noticed!
Whether I need specific materials for a class project or there are items that I always need for the classroom (Kleenex anyone?!) Parents and families are always the first people that I ask for help. Over the years I’ve come up with some tips for putting together donation lists that get results. First and foremost you need parents to notice that you are asking for something. Let them know where they can look for these kinds of messages, and make sure that you always put them in the same spot so that family members don’t have to search for them. Use bright colors and graphics that will grab their attention.…
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Organizing all that paperwork!
If you’ve spent any time in a licensed child care program, you’ve seen all the required paperwork – lesson plans, daily communication sheets, medication forms, permission slips, pick-up lists, the forms are never ending. If you’ve ever been a program administrator then you’ve felt the crush of the paperwork avalanche – add all those licensing forms to invoices, bills, staff forms, and all that mail! If you’re like me you’re probably feeling your blood pressure rise just thinking about it, but I’ve got a few tips to help you handle all that paperwork. Whether you’re a classroom teacher or an administrator, I hope that some of these tips will be…
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Cleaning tips
I spent most of today cutting out things that had been laminated, and when I was done my scissors were full of sticky lamination adhesive and I could barely use them. Do you want to know my trick for cleaning sticky scissors? Clorox wipes. I’m not joking, if you carefully rub the wipe along the blade of the scissors over and over, all of the sticky stuff will come off. Since I’m sharing that random cleaning tip, here is another post that has even more great cleaning tips for the preschool room: Getting rid of preschool stains What are your secret cleaning tips?
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What’s in my desk
When I got the job that I have right now and realized that I would have a desk for the first time in my working life I was excited to fill it up with stuff! I read tons of blog posts about great things to keep in your desk, some of which were helpful, and some of which were a little weird. Since I’ve been using many of these items regularly for the last year I thought I would share what I’ve love having at my fingertips. One of the first things that I did was to find an organizer that would fit really well in my desk drawer. I…
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Explaining assessment to families
Assessment in preschool is definitely a thing – it’s a huge part of what early childhood educators do every day, but most casual observers would never know that. This is because it’s not obvious. As teachers it important to be able to explain this unique assessment process to parents and family members so that they have a clear understanding of how we know what skills and concepts their child has mastered. There are two things that make preschool assessments just a little different; First, preschool assessments should be formative assessments. This simply means that you are using the results of any assessment to plan further activities and learning experiences. These…
