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Six Tips for Creating Effective Early Learning Classrooms
Your early learning spaces create a warm and welcoming environment for children. You’ve created distinct areas to help children transition from one activity to another, and the spaces are safe and...
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This School Supports Effective Early Learning with Innovative Classroom Spaces
Moving into a new building gave Carroll Bell Elementary School teachers the perfect opportunity to reimagine their early learning classrooms. The newly redesigned preschool, kindergarten, and first...
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New Childcraft® Furniture
New FURNITURE from Childcraft®! From active listening and hands-on activities to R&R and playtime, updated furniture shapes/styles add a fresh look and additional function to your early childhood...
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The 123’s of Teaching Children the ABC’s
My favorite series of novels is The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton. My children are Zack and Alex, Z to A. I am beginning to wonder how much of my life has been influenced by my many...
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Don’t Forget the Dramatic Play! How Pretend Play Is Beneficial for Young...
While no one can deny the importance of fostering STEM and literacy skills in early learning, dramatic play can also provide exactly what is needed for a child’s development. Research tells us that...
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Early Math Learning: Playing with Patterns
Did you know…when you teach patterning to young children, you are preparing them for algebra? Algebra involves understanding patterns and relationships, so as we work on patterning with children, we...
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It’s OK to Just Play
I was heading out to the grocery store recently, when I stopped to talk to my neighbor. She is the mother of two young girls, ages five and seven. I asked how “at-home” learning was going, and she...
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I Want to Use Music, but I Can’t Carry a Tune!
Music is a natural way to teach children many skills. It helps children learn vocabulary, musicality, rhythm, keeping a beat, sequencing, patterning, and it’s fun! However, you may feel...
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When a Child Doesn’t Like to Write
Having worked with children for many years, I have noticed a trend: the older they get, the less they like to write. I have my theories about this. One is, when children are very young, adults begin...
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Making the Most of Playing Memory
After many years of work in Early Childhood education, I have quite a compilation of games that I rely on for making learning engaging and hands-on. One such game is Memory or Concentration. If you...
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Block Play – What’s Really Going On?
Recently, I was asked to present to Pre-K teachers on the topic of block play. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the topic because it made me think of things like math and engineering which are not my...
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Investigation to Integration: A Look at STEAM in Early Childhood
We often see educators implementing STEAM in elementary and secondary programs. Over the last few years, we have slowly started to notice STEAM intentionally incorporated at the early childhood level....
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Block Play – What Else Is Going On?
I recently wrote a blog article entitled “Block Play – What’s Really Going On?” that highlighted Harriet Johnson’s research on the stages of block play. Knowledge of these stages can allow educators...
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Investigation to Integration: Digging Deeper into STEAM in Early Childhood
When you hear the word “environment” it makes some people think immediately of the physical classroom space, but we believe there is more to it than that. In addition to the space, we consider...
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More Than a Stick: Open-Ended Materials in Early Childhood
As many of my blog readers know, I am the neighborhood “stalker”, watching my neighbor kids out my kitchen window on a regular basis. However, they also know I am a good “stalker”, watching children...
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The Case for Outdoor Learning
During the past year, I have presented at and attended several virtual conferences for early childhood educators. The sessions that always seem to fill up and fill up fast are those related to...
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Creating a Caring Community of Learners to Support Social and Emotional Learning
Several years ago, I had the great fortune of participating in a training of trainers for developmentally appropriate practice as part of NAEYC’s Annual Conference for early childhood educators. We...
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A Case for Strong Social Emotional Learning
I have made a career out of watching children. Technically, I was a teacher, curriculum writer, specialist, instructional coach, and administrator. Those were my titles, but in reality, I watched...
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Challenging Behavior: A Teachable Moment
Much of my blog writing has focused on my neighbor kids as I observe their day-to-day play. I recently moved and now have no neighbor kids to spy on. In fact, one of their moms texted me to ask what...
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What Research and Experience Tell Us About Extended Learning
I can proudly say that I have been in education for over thirty years. I was a classroom teacher for much of that time, but also spent many years as a private tutor in my community. At first, the...
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