tips for teachers
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Preschool Conferences and Assessments
On Wednesday I shared a video that shows my early childhood assessments and how to use them. As you consider these and prepare to complete your own assessments I wanted to make sure that you had all of my resources in one easy place! Here are all of the posts that I’ve shared on assessments and portfolios over the years: Using assessment results to inform lesson planning Explaining assessments to families Sharing assessment results with families My favorite assessment products What does assessment evidence look like in preschool? Assessment strategies for preschool Collecting assessment evidence Google drive student portfolios Anecdotal Notes Please reach out if there is anything that I…
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Preschool Assessments and Portfolios
It’s almost spring (I’m trying to be optimistic here…), and in many places that means that it’s time to think about finishing up assessments and portfolios for the end of the school year. If you’re about to jump into that, let me help! I’ve got another video for you today that walks through why I created my own assessments, and how you can take advantage of this for your program – they really do make life so much easier! If you want to read more about these assessments and some of the different ways they can be used, then this post is exactly what you’re looking for!
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Preschool Documentation For Beginners
I love documentation! It’s kind of a silly thing to say, but as a teacher documentation is something that I will always and forever include in all of my classrooms. There are a few different reasons for this; Documentation tells the story of the children’s learning. This means that anything that shows evidence of the learning process can be considered documentation. Documentation generally falls into two categories; I like to add an additional category of documentation because I have found it to be especially successful with toddlers and young preschoolers. Photographs alone are incredibly important pieces of documentation when working with young children because they encourage conversation and verbal sharing…
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Google Drive Student Portfolios
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Beating the winter blues in the classroom
Winter seems to last forever – I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Those long days where you can’t get outside seem to stretch on forever, and after all of February’s fun holidays waiting on spring warmth and sunshine can be a little brutal. Over the years I’ve come up with fun ways to shake things up and help those days pass a little more quickly. Here are some of my favorite ways to beat the winter blues with preschoolers. These are definitely not all of the ways to shake things up and beat the winter blues, but they are the ones that I regularly turn…
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Getting – and Staying – Organized in the Classroom
I consider myself to be a very organized person, so these resources are things that I’ve created to make my planning process a little more streamlined and to help save time. These are all available in my TPT store, so make sure to click the links to see even more about them! Preschool Teacher Organization and Planning Pages – These are the pages that I keep within reach, either on my desk or my clipboard so that I can always make a note when something pops in my mind. Then I make sure to have them with me when I sit down to plan so that I can easily remember what…
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Easy Last Minute Activities
The end of the school year and the summer months can be a little crazy. Schedules are very different, there are all kinds of field trips and gatherings, and holidays can really throw everything off. These are the months when it’s especially helpful to have activities in your back pocket that you can pull out without any kind of prep work. Here are some of my favorite activities to lean into for those moments when I really need something to keep the children engaged. Bubbles – Taking preschoolers outside and letting them loose with bubbles is ALWAYS a hit. It doesn’t matter what kind of mood your kids are in,…
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Jellybean Relay Races for Preschool
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Wrapping up a year of preschool
It’s the season to think about that transition from the school year into summer. Whether your program has a hard end date, or you’re with your student all summer long, it’s helpful to really think through how you want to support children through this. Children who will go to kindergarten next year often have the benefit of preparing for graduation, and the actual graduation celebration to signify the change. With younger children who are going to continue at the same program next year, they’ve still accomplished something – they’ve finished a year of preschool! giving them a celebration to recognize this can be one great way to help make the…
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Planning the BEST Preschool Graduation
No Preschool Graduation ceremony will ever run completely smoothly – your performers are preschoolers, they’re bound to do something unpredictable, and sometimes these unpredictable moments are the most endearing parts of the entire ceremony. There are still some things that you can do to help your students prepare and ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. Here are a few tips that have worked for me in the past; Do you have any tips that have saved the day? Feel free to share them in the comments!
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Teaching when you’re sick
Flu season has been a doozy this year, and it’s officially hit our home with a vengeance. While I’m not sick yet… I’ve definitely had a lot of sleepless nights, because that’s what moms do. This has me thinking about all of the times that I’ve had to manage a classroom when I definitely wasn’t at the top of my game – sick, but not sick enough to justify a day off, tired from a newborn or sick kid, fighting a migraine, dealing with personal distractions – all of the things that life throws at us! Here are the tips and tricks that have always helped me get through those…
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Preschool Lesson Plans for January
We’re well into January – and while I’m not quite sure how that happened, I wanted to share one of my favorite resources to make your life easier this month. This was originally posted last year, but is still more than relevant and helpful! I told you last week that I was going to tackle videos this year, and here I am, already crushing that resolution! I just posted a nice long (maybe too long…) video of all of the materials that are included in my January Month of Preschool set – you definitely want to check this out if you’ve ever wished that someone would just do all of your lesson…
