Educational creativity

Mrs. Miner 's kindergarten has a cute idea.  Using a digital frame to show site words.  It would work with letters, numbers, words, or anything you want your kids to recognize.  She has her kids read, spell or write the words they see.  I think I would like to try it as a bingo game.  Children could stamp or cover up the symbol as they see it. I love these math stations from Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten Monkey Business freebies Differentiated Instruction, guest post on prek and sharing  has printables for using nature in your centers. No Time for Flashcards  has a fun way to I spy letters  or anything maybe on a school walk or read around the room. I like this idea from Kindergarten Crayons  for a word work station, but I might have to adapt it a little for my kids. Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational (such a great name)  has a fun game that will get kids up and moving and keep them thinking with very little s...

     Writing, for young children is a playful but purposeful activity.  Doing countless tracing worksheets will not teach a child to write and will probably discourage them from wanting to write.  Here  is a site that explains this concept well.  Teaching writing should also be playful and purposeful.  If you are interested in learning more about the stages of writing  look at this previous post.   Along with fun group lessons that help children learn to write letters, words, sentences, and stories, I use a writing center as a way to encourage writing, practice writing, and making writing purposeful.  I frequently visit this center to prompt new letter or word uses.  I try to encourage story writing, also.  This will help with reading skills.  If they can write their own story, they can read it back to you.      In the writing center, children always have access to writing material...

You are suppose to have like 14 books per child available to children each day in order to promote good reading.  And, the books need to be rotated often.  I don't nearly have that  many available, but I like to try to get as many books out as possible.  That doesn't mean you need to have 14 of the same book or that they need to be good quality books.  So how do you collect enough books?  I have found books at garage sales, scholastic $1 books and freebies, Dollar Tree, and thrift stores.  Books in your library don't have to be the same as read alouds.  Board books, old books, black and white books, or any kind of book will work.  Don't forget to provide inexpensive paperback copies of your favorite read alouds and provide multiple copies of the children's favorites.  Make sure you put out books that are from the different genres and different reading levels.  You can also have class or child ma...