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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…
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Getting Organized
If you had to ask my friends and co-workers to use one word to describe me, most of them would use the word “organized.” It’s true, I am a very organized person and because this is something that I excel at and enjoy, it’s found its way into my work. Lately I’ve spent a ton of time helping other teachers implement systems that will keep them organized. I wanted to take a minute to share some of my favorite products for staying organized so that you can benefit from some of my over-the-top organization. All links are affiliates. Half-inch white labels – These might be one of my all time…
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Friday Freebie – Summer Writing Prompts
Happy Friday! I have such a great idea for you today – I did a training last week and one of the participants was sharing that she is doing summer journals with all of her students. She thought that this would be a good way to continue the writing and language work that they started during the school year, without really feeling like they were doing “work”. She is planning on having them take their journals along with them on all of their fun summer trips so that they can write or draw what they learned and how they felt about the experience. These Summer Writing Prompts from Kinder Molly,…
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Summer Fun
A couple of years ago (June of 2014 to be exact) I shared a series of posts about fun activities to break up summer boredom with your own children and your students. You can find those posts HERE and HERE. I thought it was time to refresh those lists and share some of my favorite easy summer activities. I am constantly reminding the teachers that I work with that children will always love the most simple ideas – we (the adults) are the ones who get bored with the same things over and over again, but children haven’t been doing these things for nearly as long as we have, so…
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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,…
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I have some great things in store!
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Friday Freebie – Bubble Recipe
Happy Friday! Today’s freebie is the perfect little recipe to send home with your students. These bubble recipe cards would be fun for families to follow and report how their bubbles worked. Go download your set and have a great weekend!
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Bubble Play
When the weather finally gets nice the last thing that I want to do is be stuck inside, so we spend a ton of time outside. Bubbles are the number one activity that I turn to when the children start to get bored. Here are some fun ideas for bubble play that I’ve rounded up: Shape bubble wands Water bottle bubbles Huge bubbles Bubble refill station
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End of the year traditions
Do you have any end of the year traditions? Other than preschool graduation, my favorite tradition is just to take it easy. I like to spend extra time focusing on my relationships with the children and enjoying our time together. We always spend a lot of time outside, taking walks, blowing bubbles, drawing sidewalk chalk murals. This unstructured time is some of my absolute favorite from the entire year. My traditions aren’t all about doing nothing though, there is usually some work involved. I make every attempt to make it fun. We do a lot of cleaning, I pull out all of the puzzles and we make sure that all…
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All the Dollar Store Love
My family went camping this weekend – it was cold and rainy – but I planned ahead. A couple of weeks ago I went to the dollar store (in this case the Dollar Tree) and spent $25 on toys for my daughter – it was $25 well spent, I picked up balls, play dough, plastic animals, dolls, and sand toys. All of these items can get as dirty as she wants them to, and if we lose them or break them, I’m totally fine with it. This is not my first experience with dollar store awesomeness, as a teacher it was my best (and most regularly visited) source for materials. …
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Friday Freebie – Teacher Appreciation
Happy Friday! It’s not too late to recognize the teachers that you work with for Teacher Appreciation Week. If you’re still looking for a quick idea, this fun printable from Briana Beverly is perfect. These Teacher coupons are both cute and hilarious, and are sure to be a gift that no one will forget! Go download yours (even if you just want to save them for next year) and have a wonderful weekend!
