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Friday Freebie – Martin Luther King Jr.
Happy Friday! Is it just me, or did this week last forever? I think that’s what happens after a nice long break, luckily this time of the year has plenty or great teaching days to look forward to, and that helps move things along a little. Today’s freebie is for one of those great days – MLK day. This can be difficult to help preschoolers understand because many of them have not faced bias, or even started to recognize differences like skin color. There are definitely conversations that we can have with preschoolers, and this I have a Dream freebie from Cara’s Creative Playground would be a perfect little activity…
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Lesson planning tips and tricks
This week has been all about lesson plans, because going back to school after winter break is hard enough without putting this particular task off any longer! Here are some other great Preschool Ponderings posts about lesson plans: Using a web to lesson plan Lesson plans for the first week of preschool Free planning pages E-Resources to use when you’re planning If you’re looking for more inspiration make sure to check out the other planning posts from this week; Thoughts for lesson planning when you use an emergent curriculum Ideas for organizing the materials you need for lesson activities Free lesson plan templates
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Lesson planning with an emergent curriculum
Earlier this week I posted free lesson plan templates. One of the questions that I used to ask the most was “How are you supposed to plan ahead when you are implementing an emergent curriculum?!” I like to think of my lesson plan as a flexible outline. When I sit down to write my lesson plan, I start with the activities that I know the children want to explore – these are the experiences that support what I’ve been observing in the classroom. They’re related to the conversations I’ve heard and the questions that the children have been asking. They may use materials that the children have shown a particular…
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Preschool activity materials at your fingertips
I love to lesson plan (it’s one of those weird teacher obsessions), but for some reason, lesson planning never actually made me feel more organized. Then I realized that just because I had a plan in my head, it didn’t necessarily mean that I was prepared for the activity. The most stressful time of my day was always running around trying to find the supplies and materials that I needed to implement activities. The solution was so easy that I can’t believe it took me so long to figure it out – Every Friday afternoon I would gather all of the materials that I needed for the next week’s activities,…
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Make your lesson plans work for you
I’ve always believed that your lesson plan should be more than just activities listed on a piece of paper. Your lesson plan should guide your day and help you feel more organized, confident, and prepared to start the day. To make your lesson plan work for you, it’s helpful to evaluate how it is formatted. Think about how you use your lesson plan. Do you follow it like a schedule? Do you pick and chose activities depending on your students interest levels, moods, and current temperaments? Do you use it like a checklist, ensuring that you complete the activities and meet specific standards? Do you make notes on it so…
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January Currently
I completely missed the Currently in December, there was just way to much going on, so I wasn’t going to miss the first Currently of the new year! Here’s what I’m up to right now; Listening: Ugh, I swear half of the TV that I watch is entirely because my husband turned it on and left the room, but not before I got completely sucked in. This is why I’m currently watching an all day Pawn Stars marathon, it’s also how I managed to see the majority of the college football season and every episode of American Pickers. Loving: I spent the majority of last week happily spending most of…
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Friday Freebie – New Year Organization
Happy Friday! Happy New Year! I hope that you’ve got big plans for your last weekend before you head back to reality. I’ve had a fun, relaxing little break, but I’ve also done some planning ahead for the coming year. It’s inevitable that I will spend part of any vacation I take planning for what’s coming next, it’s just what I do. I also created some planning pages to help me out a little, so I’m sharing them with you as today’s Friday Freebie! If your resolution is to be more organized next year, then I’ve got you covered. Download these free planning pages from my TPT store, These pages…
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One word resolution
For the last few years I’ve been practicing what I call a one word resolution. The idea is that you select one word that sums up what you want to work towards for the year (here’s my word from last year). This year, my resolution is simply to care. This sounds really easy right? You might be thinking that that’s not really a resolution. It’s true, I think of myself as a naturally empathetic person, but this is about more than just being caring. When I say that I’m going to care, it covers so many parts of my life. Professionally, I want to make sure that I care…
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Explaining units of time to a preschooler
When we think about time as far as preschool standards are considered, we generally want to make sure that children can sequence daily events (i.e. breakfast comes first, then lunch, then dinner) and understand their own personal histories (“I’m four years old, but my birthday is tomorrow and then I’ll be five”). Because preschoolers don’t have a grat understanding of specific time concepts, explaining the idea of a new year can be really difficult. In the past I just kind of blew over it, not wanting to confuse them, but it felt wrong not to use a common holiday as a teachable moment, so last year I created this What…
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New Year’s Activities for Preschoolers
I always love to share New year’s activities, for a couple of reasons. First, the Christmas let-down is a real thing, kiddos are bummed about the fact that they’ve looked forward to that big day and now it’s over. Planning special activities for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s day is a great way to help them look forward to something else, and realize that just because Christmas is over the fun doesn’t have to end. Second, the idea of a new year is a really abstract concept, celebrating the begining of the new year can help children attach a very real memory to what could otherwise be a vague…
