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Drool-worthy Reggio Inspired Products
What is Reggio-Inspired? When it comes to products for the classroom, Reggio-inspired means sustainable, aesthetically pleasing toys that encourage children to be creative and use the items many different ways. This list includes some of my favorite products for the classroom, it also includes some toys that I would love to have…if money wasn’t an issue. Reggio-inspired doesn’t mean expensive, on the contrary rather, Reggio principles encourage using what you have available and re-purposing, but many of the products on this list are handmade and very high quality. This means that they are often worth the price because they will outlast years and years of students, which is not something…
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What’s in my student portfolios
Yesterday I shared a tutorial for setting up digital student portfolios using Google Drive. Today I want to show you what I put in my student portfolios. I include all of these documents, regardless of the age of the student (I have used them with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers). In Ohio we use ODE’s Early Learning Development Standards, so that is what my portfolios are based on. You can explore the standards here. All of these portfolio pages are available in my TPT store, and they are editable, so you can download and get started immediately. Check out my assessments here. Each portfolio starts with a cover page to document…
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Space saving portfolios
I’ve always used three-ring binders to compile my students’ portfolios, but this year my classroom did not have the extra space to store all of them – 1 binder per student takes up a lot of precious space! I decided to do digital portfolios, and using Google drive to store them has been an absolute lifesaver. Having all of the portfolios on Google Drive meant that I could work on them any time I wanted to – whether I was at school or not, and I was able to share each folder with the parents online, then they could look through the portfolios whenever they wanted to. This meant less…
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July Currently
This month crept up on me, I was fully prepared for the 4th of July and completely forgot about the Currently! Better late than never right? Listening: I’m watching 27 Dresses right now. Last night I had the house to myself and couldn’t for the life of me find a cheesy chick flick on TV, so I ended up watching bridesmaids – I know, I know, everyone loves that movie, but its not my favorite. The whole thing is just really uncomfortable and gross. But tonight I found 27 Dresses – just my kind of romantic comedy, and my husband keeps asking if he can change the channel… Loving: This…
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Friday Freebie
It’s Friday and it’s a holiday – double celebration today! I have a really cute freebie for you, i’m so glad that I found this one, because it is definitely something that I would use in my classroom, so I’m excited to share it with you. This letter match and counting set is from Special Teacher for Special Kids. I love the colors, the graphics, and the simplicity of this set. It includes cards with each letter of the alphabet in uppercase and lowercase so that children can match them. It also includes number cards that children can match with quantities of patriotic themed objects. This set could also be…
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Taking a break!
I love my work, but today I am enjoying life and the next two days of celebrating my favorite holiday. Since it’s Thursday I thought I’d share a couple of #throwbackthursday photos with you. These were taken four years ago while watching fireworks with my favorite people – my sister and my husband.
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No plans for the 4th? I’ve got you covered!
The 4th of July has always been my favorite holiday, even as a young child I would choose July 4th over Christmas. Now, some of this may have to do with the fact that my birthday is on July 9, so my family often had my birthday celebration on the Fourth of July. But even as I got older, I loved singing along with the patriotic country songs that they play on the radio all day, wearing my star spangled t-shirt, saluting our troops, creating the barbecue to end all barbecues, and oohing and ahhing as fireworks exploded in the sky. We never had huge Fourth of July celebrations, but…
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It’s not procrastinating… It’s learning something new
I was supposed to be at school all day today, and I ended up finishing an hour early, so I essentially had an extra hour in my day today. The entire way home (a whole 10 minute drive) I made a list of all of the things that I wanted to accomplish with my extra time – blog posts to write, new bundles to start, and a project that has been on my list for a while, I was going to get it all done! Ha! When I turned on my computer I remembered that I had downloaded Inkscape over the weekend, and I hadn’t really had a chance to…
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Kids can build with anything!
My favorite thing about working with young children is that their imaginations never cease to amaze me. I love to introduce random materials and challenge them to be as creative as possible. This is one of those activities that has saved me a million times – when they fly through all of my planned lessons, special events have to be rescheduled, or, like on Friday afternoon, when nap time was cut in half by an accidental fire drill. There was no way that they were all going to go back to sleep, so I needed to find a way to fill an hour, and I needed to do it fast,…
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Friday Freebie!
Happy Friday! I worked my behind off this week so that I could spend my Friday afternoon getting crafty – make sure to watch my instagram feed for project photos, I haven’t quite decided what I want to work on yet, so it’ll be a surprise for you and me! Today’s freebie is Ready, Set, ME from A and M Productions. This activity asks children to choose their favorite things (colors, pets, etc.) in order to create an all about me book that they can share with everyone. This is a great activity for the beginning of the year, but it would also be wonderful for a self-concept and confidence building…
