Educational creativity

Children come to school with one important word in their mind.  Each child has a unique name and it brings ownership and self pride when you use there names.  It also helps children learn each other's name and builds a community.   This is why starting with their names as the first letters and words they learn is so important.  I always start everything with the child's name Word Work center-previous post with lots of fun ideas Art center- invisible name Label-label everything with their name, point out their names as you walk down the hallway Say it- Add their names to poems, fingerplays, and games.  Here in a previous post, I made Name Stick Puzzle s for all the children in my child's class. Letter work center- Rowdy in Room 300  has this free printable you can use with letter pasta, magnetic letters,letter beads, or any other manipulatives you can find. This could also be used with your sensory tub that i...

This has been one of my favorite home made games so far.  And surprisingly all the kids enjoyed it, too. All you need are some number cards, some kind of marker, and dice.  I made this number strip in my word program by adding a text box and giving it a neat border. I made this game to assess whether or not the kids who knew how to match numbers to sets could immediately recognize a set up to 5.  (In the Creative Curriculum assessment books)  It did a good job of assessing this objective.  But, to my surprise it attracted other children who weren't interested in numbers yet.  (3 year olds) The child rolls the dice and counts the dots.  Then they put a marker on the number they rolled.  We used pom poms here. Now that I am going to be with 4 year olds, I am going to make a new set of number strips using dots.  I found this dice that has numbers 0-9. The game will be played the same way only opposite.  The kids will recognize th...