‘Tis the season of the Great Pumpkin!
Pumpkin Passion
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Learning through Play and Experience, Uncategorized 3 Comments
Whole Child Development
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Learning through Play and Experience, Uncategorized 3 Comments
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Learning through Play and Experience, Uncategorized 5 Comments
Alphabet Awareness is a critical component of emergent literacy. Children often master the capital letters first, quickly discerning between those large strokes. But once the focus turns to the lowercase letters things can get a bit dicey.
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Child Development & DAP, Learning through Play and Experience, Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Anyone who has worked in education knows that to be most effective, you need learning activities that can be differentiated to meet a variety of levels and objectives. That’s part of what makes play-based learning so effective — it’s naturally adapted to the needs and objectives of individual learners. I’m always excited when an activity can be tweaked to meet each learners needs, and we happened to have a perfect example pop up at our house recently. (Pardon the cluttered table. Just keepin’ it real, folks!)
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers 2 Comments
I’m sharing some favorite posts from the past as I spend some extra time with my family after our new addition.
Imagine yourself as a home builder. You’ve acquired new clients who are excited to be building their dream home. You’re excited too. You love watching your hard work create a beautiful, lasting structure. Your clients bring in a file of all the things they want to see in their new home. paint chips, magazine clippings, and carpet samples come pouring out. You start building right away, paying attention to every last detail they spelled out for you. the home is magnificent. Simply beautiful. There’s only one problem. Your clients never mentioned anything about the foundation, so you never put one in. They wanted a house they could see, not yards of concrete buried by dirt.
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers 3 Comments
Summer is a great time to get lost in a good book. Not only is it an enjoyable and inexpensive way to have an adventure, but reading aloud with your children builds language and literacy skills while building bonds and memories that last. (If you need more reasons for reading together, check out this post from A Mom with a Lesson Plan or this one from Imagination Soup!)
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Create 28 Comments
A big “thank you” to Deirdre from the blog, JDaniel4’s Mom for being a guest and sharing a fun book activity just in time for the Fourth of July!
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Learning through Play and Experience 3 Comments
I’m sharing some favorite posts from the past as I spend some extra time with family.
While working within a farm theme with some emerging young readers recently, I used one of my favorite delivery systems for spelling work: Scrambled Eggs. It’s essentially a word scramble, but I make it more hands-on by writing or typing out the words, then cutting them into small squares and placing them in a plastic egg. (This worked particularly well within the farm theme since we had been talking about chickens producing eggs!)
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Learning through Play and Experience 4 Comments
I’m taking a little break as we welcome our fourth son to our family. Enjoy this First Friday Q&A from last year (also available at YouTube here).
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Child Development & DAP, Learning through Play and Experience, Positive Guidance and Social Skills 44 Comments
I’m so excited to welcome author and former kindergarten teacher, Susan Case from Kindergarten and Preschool for Parents and Teachers, and thank her for today’s post!
Children are excited about starting school, yet also a little afraid. Starting school means changes in their daily routine including being away from familiar surroundings, learning new rules, and following directions from other adults. It’s natural to have doubts and fears about change. Talk to your child about what they can expect. Perhaps you can visit the school’s playground. Katie from Mommy with Selective Memory emailed me this concern:
by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience 10 Comments
While studying seeds, plants and flowers, I love to take a field trip to a beautiful garden. Unfortunately, my plans to do so recently were vetoed by weather reports for a thunder storm. So instead, we visited a beautiful greenhouse we’re lucky to have nearby.
In early education, there is too much distance between what we know and what we do. I bridge the gaps that exist between academia, decision-makers, educators, and parents so that together, we can improve the quality of early education while also respecting and protecting the childhood experience.
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