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Counting Collections Math

3 Tried and True Hands-On Math Activities

When I was in school, math wasn’t my favorite subject. Like so many other adults who’ve said this exact same thing, I felt like I wasn’t very good at the computation and problem solving. Now that I’m a teacher, I …

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Daily Schedule Writing

An Intentional Daily Schedule: Part 6 – Writer’s Workshop

With the final post in my Intentional Daily Schedule series, I’ll be talking about Writer’s Workshop and how you can structure it to support every kind of writer in your kindergarten classroom. So far, we’ve discussed Play Centers, Morning Meeting, …

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Daily Schedule Reading

An Intentional Daily Schedule: Part 5 – Reader’s Workshop

Does anyone else experience that magical transformation that their students seem to make every year during winter break? The one that shows up when they return during January and all of a sudden they can read entire books and write …

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Daily Schedule

An Intentional Daily Schedule: Part 4 – Word Study

It has been a chilly, rainy first week back after winter break in SoCal! My students and I spent the majority of the week together inside the four walls of our classroom. Good thing I love them so much! 🙂 …

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Daily Schedule Math

An Intentional Daily Schedule: Part 3 – Math

First of all, Happy New Year! I am so excited to start fresh and reach some goals this year, both professionally and in my personal life. I am feeling pretty optimistic about the possibilities! And now I’m back with part …

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Recent Posts

  • What is a “co-created” classroom?
  • A TK Daily Schedule for Full and Half Day Programs
  • 3 Play-Based Activities for Fall in TK and Kindergarten
  • All About Me: An Identity Study in Kindergarten and TK
  • The Power of Phonological Awareness in Kindergarten

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Holly | TK Teacher
“Wait…do you not explicitly teach letters in T “Wait…do you not explicitly teach letters in TK?” Actually, no!

Pre-literacy in TK is heavily influenced by exposure to letters through play-based activities, games, and storytelling! 

Sure, we have students who know all letter names and sounds. We love encouraging them to use those skills to tell stories and add letters to them.

But our goal is to make sure our students understand why letters are useful, how to create them, and what they can do to help us communicate.

So yes, we do teach letters. But in a way that honors their age and through as much play as possible!

#earlychildhoodeducator #playbasedlearning #transitionalkindergarten #reggioinspired #teachergram
Because we use documentation panels, I don’t hav Because we use documentation panels, I don’t have to do much! We pick one project from each month and showcase it on the walls around the room once we finish. The only things I add for open house:

• Posters in the kitchen, blocks, and loft explaining how we learn through play (but these are totally optional as our families have heard us talk about this often!)

• Small signs on our shelves explaining how we use the materials (again, optional as these are pretty self explanatory)

Families enjoy the space as is, and I don’t have to stress about turning over our room for a one-hour event!

#reggioinspired #earlychildhoodeducator #playbasedlearning #teachergram
Year 15 and I’ve learned some things ✨ #teach Year 15 and I’ve learned some things ✨

#teachergram #teacherlife
Handwriting Without Tears is a wonderful program…BUT it matters how you use it!

In TK, there is such a wide range of fine motor skills and exposure to writing. We also see a range of letter knowledge and task attention. All of this matters when you want to expose children to letter formation.

Some of the best advice I’ve been given on HWT: The “without tears” part of the program means they are writing (in the traditional sense) very little!

Big body movements:
The wood pieces are so much more than letter formation tools. They help us with spatial awareness, position, coordination, bilateral movement, patterning, and modeling. We create pictures with them, dance with them, and move them around. Mat Man is a friend that we create with them, but most of the time we use them in a very open-ended way.

Writing without writing:
A mentor also reminded me that a child’s first writing tool is their finger. So we use that to trace objects, make pictures in sand, hold things to strengthen grip, dig, pinch, roll. A hand can do so much more than just hold a pencil. In fact, my students are only given a pencil once a week (they’re always available to them) and I do not correct or change their grip.

Playful exposure to letters:
When we are making pictures with wood pieces or drawing on chalkboards and just so happen to position lines in a way that make a letter, some children notice! But we are not hyper focused on forming letters just yet. I break down letters and we play with the parts. Letters are just a series of lines and curves, so when we talk about those parts, we begin to notice patterns in letters. Curiosity supports letter learning at this stage.

This program can be used in many different ways and, when used intentionally, can be a great building block for children as they grow into writers.
#handwritingwithouttears
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