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Fall is in the air!  I can smell those freshly sharpened pencils now!  Preschool teachers everywhere are charting a course for a fantastic new school year.  This week, I’ll be writing on  ten topics that will help get that new year started right! To start out, you need to know where your children are coming… continue reading

As you begin to plan out your preschool curriculum for the year, it helps to know where your children are developmentally so that you know where you want to “go”.  One way I like to do that is with a developmental checklist.  You can buy developmental checklists and programs like the POCET or the Portage… continue reading

When I talk about starting with the end in mind, I’m not talking about those days where you begin to fantasized about the last day of school, giving all the little darlings a soft pat on the head as you seek refuge at the nearest source of sand and surf.  What I mean is starting… continue reading

Ask your average parents what they hope their child will learn in preschool, and most have learning the ABC’s somewhere in their tops 5 goals.  Many preschool teachers respond to this by implementing a “letter-of-the-week” curriculum.  One week may be the letter “M”, so we eat marshmallows, draw maps, read books about monkeys, and write… continue reading

Ask your average parents what they hope their child will learn in preschool, and most have learning the ABC’s somewhere in their tops 5 goals.  Many preschool teachers respond to this by implementing a “letter-of-the-week” curriculum.  One week may be the letter “M”, so we eat marshmallows, draw maps, read books about monkeys, and write… continue reading

Montessori, Piaget, and Martha Stewart all have one thing in common.   All three would agree that a room should be a thoughtfully prepared environment, one that creates an invitation to those that enter.   Martha’s rooms may invite you to sit down and sip mint julep, but the other two postulated more about environments that invite children to learn.  Children are… continue reading

I’m trying something new this year, in an attempt to combine a little bit of a show-and-tell opportunity and a numeracy activity.  I’m calling my experiment “The Number Bag”.  You might want to try it out too, and let me know how it works for you! My magical, mystical number bag is simply a cloth… continue reading

I’m trying something new this year, in an attempt to combine a little bit of a show-and-tell opportunity and a numeracy activity.  I’m calling my experiment “The Number Bag”.  You might want to try it out too, and let me know how it works for you! My magical, mystical number bag is simply a cloth… continue reading

There is a reason why the US Postal Service does not employ pre-schoolers.  And yet, we teachers keep trying to use their services as a reliable way to transfer papers between home and school.  We rummage through the 12 pockets in their backpacks, trying to find the book order they thought they brought, and we… continue reading

Arrival and departure are two inevitable parts of the preschool day.  The preschoolers will come, and eventually, they will leave.  Just because these are absolutes, doesn’t mean they don’t require some planning.  The children’s arrival will set the tone for their entire day, and their departure will indelibly shade the way they remember their day.  Take some… continue reading