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SALE!
I’m interrupting your Valentine’s Day celebration to bring you some big news – Teachers Pay Teachers is having a SALE! Whenever there is a sale a take some time to share what’s on my wish list, because if I’m spending money you should too! In keeping with my theme of Family February I tried to pick out items that are geared toward family communication, and I found some amazing things! Parent Handouts from Pocket of Preschool Family Bingo Game from Probably in Preschool How Do You Feel? Take Home Literacy and Activity Bag from Miss Vicki’s Bookkits And of course I always like to share some of my favorite items…
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Love Tree
There are a ton of ways that you could create a love tree. The basic idea is to take some kind of tree branch – or you could even decorate a small Christmas tree – and hang paper hearts from the branches, similar to a thankful tree that you might do for Thanksgiving, but in this case ask parents, family members and your students to write down the things or people that they love. It’s an easy enough way to create a visual of all the things and people that are important to us. I’ve got a little twist for you. Instead of just writing down the names of things…
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Family Valentine Station
Valentine’s Day is the perfect holiday for celebrating families because it is all about love. Focusing on the love between family members is also a great way to make Valentine’s Day relevant for our youngest learners. I always spent a lot of time helping my students understand that Valentine’s Day is a special day where we get to make sure the people that we love know how much we love them. We would make valentine’s for our family members, friends, and the special people in our lives. I recently thought of a way to extend this that I wish I would have done when I was in the classroom –…
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Friday Freebie – Family Engagement Calendar
Happy Friday! I have found the perfect Friday Freebie for Family February – say that five times fast! Check out this Family Engagement calendar from Designed by Miss G. Now, I know that this calendar is for September, but it is is such a great idea that I just had to share. She also has freebies for October and November. Stick them in your files for next year and you’ll be glad that your family engagement activities have already been planned come next fall!
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Using family photos in the classroom
The easiest way to start any family engagement effort is to begin collecting photos from each of your families. There are so many ways that these can be used in the classroom. Decorate a quiet space with the photos and children can sit there and look at their family’s photo when they are feeling sad or need a little reassurance. Use them to help the children get to know each other Talk about family structures and compare similarities and differences Look at each family member’s physical characteristics Practice naming each family member and write their names Of course the most difficult piece of this work is actually getting families to…
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Beyond the family survey
As a teacher I was a huge fan of the family survey. It helped me learn the answers to very specific questions about children and their families (who lives with you? Is your child afraid of anything? What are your child’s favorite foods?). As a parent, I just filled out one of these surveys for my daughter’s class the other day, and when I was done it felt like I hadn’t really given her teachers a lot of information. It certainly wasn’t going to help them get to know her better, and at this age the answers change so regularly that they may not even be relevant in a month…
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Family February
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ve probably noticed that I often dedicate each week to a specific topic, and when I started planning for this week the topic that I had in mind was engaging families in classroom activities. But of course, as I started thinking about that specific topic I came up with way more than a week’s worth of posts. So I’m going to try something new, I’m devoting the entire month of February to topics related to partnering with families and promoting strong families. I think the timing is perfect, so much of what we talk about in February is related to love,…
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Friday Freebie – Germs
Happy Friday, I hope you’re all staying healthy! If you’re looking for an activity to reinforce your hygiene reminders this cute mini germ book from Jen Agent is a great choice! Downloard your copy and have a wonderful weekend.
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Germs Germs Germs
I have to apologize for being MIA this week, my household is sick sick sick! I know that its a rough year for cold and flu, and I’m not complaining because we could have it much worse. I did want to take a quick minute to share a resource that might be helpful if you’re fighting the germs with your students. Please take a minute to check out my hand washing visuals to help build those healthy routines!
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Circle Time Seating Solutions
I’ve observed a ton of circle time routines in many many different classrooms. I can definitively say that there is one thing that the best circle times have in common. It isn’t the content, the strategies used to engage the children, or even the time of day that it is held. No, the one thing that the most successful circle time routines have in common is a successful strategy for identifying each child’s seat. Little ones love boundaries (really, they do – that’s why they test them so often). So giving them a clearly defined place to sit helps them to focus more successfully. The visual reminder helps them learn…
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