Educators, whether it’s the parent instructing their child at home, the teacher with a classroom of twenty, or a one-on-one tutor, all want the very best for the children in their care. For a very long time, rote memorization was the standard – a teacher or parent quizzing students, asking students to recite facts, or…
Circle Time
Selfish Preschoolers
Help!! My preschoolers are so selfish. They’re always snatching, grabbing, and they never seem to listen when other people are talking. Is this normal? Let’s take a closer look… Egocentrism – What is it? The stages of development are extremely necessary to consider when teaching preschool-aged children. Egocentrism refers to the child’s inability to see a…
Make Calendar Time Meaningful for Preschoolers
Each morning at preschool after the students have completed their morning work, we spend a few minutes together at Circle Time. At the beginning of the year with our younger students, it lasts about 5 minutes– just enough time to sing a hello song and practice each others’ names. By the time our students are…
Memory Games
There are lots of times in preschool when we have just a couple of minutes of free time. Our day is very short, so I look for ways to use these little snippets of time effectively. Here are some easy (you already have the supplies on hand), quick (you can gather the supplies in just…
First Week Centers and Circle Time
One of the best things about Play to Learn is that our classes and teachers stay together for two, and sometimes even three, years. Our older Pre-K class this year started coming when they were just 2.5 years old. So, this is our third year together. In many ways the first week is not truly…
Memory Trays
One of the tricks to maintaining sanity in lesson planning is to find activities that can be used over and over again with different themes. Ideally, the activity has a double-goal and fosters important logical thinking and reasoning skills. These memory trays are in my bag of tricks. During circle time, I present the students…
Grid Games
I recently taught a workshop in the county that focused on math skills for preschoolers. One of the things that I love most about teaching these workshops for other preschool teachers and day care providers is it forces me to take a very close look at my own teaching practices. If I am going to…