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Explaining assessment to families
Assessment in preschool is definitely a thing – it’s a huge part of what early childhood educators do every day, but most casual observers would never know that. This is because it’s not obvious. As teachers it important to be able to explain this unique assessment process to parents and family members so that they have a clear understanding of how we know what skills and concepts their child has mastered. There are two things that make preschool assessments just a little different; First, preschool assessments should be formative assessments. This simply means that you are using the results of any assessment to plan further activities and learning experiences. These…
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Helping your child get ready for preschool
As a preschool teacher I spend a ton of time making sure that children are prepared to start kindergarten, but I don’t always think about helping children prepare for preschool. Maybe that’s because there’s so much that I can do to help once they start, but I don’t often get to work with families before they start attending. If you know any children who will be starting preschool this fall, whether they’re your own children, new students that will be in your class, or even just friends’ children, here are a few things that parents can do to help little ones prepare for those first few days: Talk about it…
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Friday Freebie – Preschool Teacher Print
Happy Friday! I’ve been feeling a little burnt out this week – that’s not supposed to happen in the summer! Download here Since I’ve been in need of a little inspiration, I figured I would create my own, and then share it with you of course. This is an exclusive blog freebie, only available right here – This cute little set includes this one print in 5 different colors so that you can choose the one that fits your classroom decor best, or share them all with your favorite preschool teachers. I know how hard you work and how much you do because I’ve been there, this little print is…
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Great Gadgets for Teachers
Since I shared how wonderful and amazing my sewing machine has been for the classroom in yesterdays post, today I wanted to share a post that I originally wrote for the blog two years ago about some of my favorite gadgets for the classroom. I still love love love all of these items so I’m sharing this post from July of 2014 below: There are a few tools that I have collected over the years that have made my job a million times easier. Now is the perfect time to share my list of awesome tools because you still have time to splurge on a couple of these before school…
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Sewing for the classroom
This beautiful piece of equipment just arrived at my house and I cannot wait to get it out of the box, but I promised myself that I would post something before I get sucked in by the sewing machine and no one can find me for the rest of the week! Singer Modern Quilter Quilting and Sewing Machine (Amazon affiliate link) Since sewing is just about the only thing on my mind right now, I figured I’d share a list of all the wonderful things that I’ve sewn for my classroom. The photos below aren’t mine, because I’m notoriously bad about remembering to take classroom photos, so if you want…
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Friday Freebie – Planning Pages
Happy Friday! This week flew by, and I’m not complaining about that but I would definitely love for summer to slow down just a little! Of course, this next freebie is sure to get you in back-to-school planning mode, so I suggest downloading these free Preschool Teacher Planning pages, storing them somewhere safe, and walking away from the computer before they suck you in. Enjoy your summer weekend and come back to them another day, like maybe when it’s raining!
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Re-Thinking Transitions
I’ve been all about routines this week, probably because I’ve been super-conscious of my own personal routines for whatever reason. I can’t talk about routines in the preschool room without devoting some time to transitions. Transitions, that’s one of those buzz words that we use a lot in early childhood. Do you ever stop and really think about that word? To transition means to change from one thing to the next, when we use the word transition in the context of early childhood education we are usually talking about helping children move from one activity to the next. Some transitions are very natural, like singing a clean up song when…
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Ideas for streamlining parent communication
One of the teaching tasks that I dread is parent communication. I go overboard trying to get parents’ attention. I share messages in every possible way that I can, hoping that one of them will make it’s mark. Nothing seems to work, and I know I’m not alone in this because I work with teachers everyday, and they all tell me the same thing. But, I’ve had a thought – an epiphany if you will. I’ve been thinking a lot about routines lately (see yesterday’s post), specifically, how routines are just as important for adults as they are for children. If I develop a routine for communicating with parents, not only…
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Routines to help your day run smoother
Have you ever noticed how quickly three day weekends go by? I always feel like I need a weekend to recuperate from my three day weekend. I was thinking about all of this as I got ready for work this morning. I was totally on autopilot, just going through the motions without really thinking about them and appreciating the fact that I had picked out an outfit and packed my lunch the night before. These evening routines were making my morning so much easier, which in turn made the rest of my day much less stressful! The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have end…
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What’s Happening?
I like to take a minute each month to share what I’m up to. It’s a great way to connect and step outside of the classroom for a minute! Here’s what’s happening in my life right now: To see what else is going on in my life, follow me on Instagram! Search for erinnholleran!
