A whole month of daily low-prep STEAM activities for kids. You are going to love all of the low-prep STEAM activities that we have in store!

FREE cutting, coloring and tracing pack for preschool and kindergarten to practice scissor skills and fine motor skills. Includes 6 no-prep worksheets for a set of easy and fun activities.

Free printable preschool worksheets pdf for teachers and homeschoolers. Fun preschool worksheets for math, English, fine motor skills, and more!

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR NAME It is so exciting when children become curious about how to write their name. I believe teaching them to write their name should be the first word they learn how to spell . It is personal, concrete and helps them realize that putting letters together in writing has me

Let’s talk about creating and using tactile schedules in the classroom. If you have a Teacher of the Visually Impaired that works with you, they may provide you with a kit or schedule pieces from the library of the blind. Here is a link to my local library. Check with your state and see if you […]

Not only will cutting sheets help teach your child how to cut properly, but they offer great practice for cutting a straight line.

Equip your child for success with these awesome educational resources! You'll have everything you need to help your preschooler explore the alphabet and beyond. Take advantage of these free printables.

These dot pages for dot markers are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. They are such a fun and easy activity to set up your child.

Dozens of educational busy bag ideas to keep your little one engaged while learning! A ton of free printable busy bag ideas included!

Free printable shapes worksheets for teaching kids the basic shapes. Lots of fun activities to download for FREE!

If you're a parent or teacher looing for pathological demand avoidance (PDA) strategies for kids, this post is a great place to start.

Print this free kindergarten assessment pack to use as end of the year testing for your kindergarten students. This is a great way to see where your students are at, and find any areas for development.

10 inexpensive rewards to use in your middle school class.

The Fall Preschool Unit is packed full of hands on math & literacy activities as well as no prep worksheets for easy lesson planning.

Proprioceptive input activities throughout the day improves sensory integration, self-regulation, and also prevents inappropriate sensory seeking behaviors.

A ton of free printable worksheets for kindergarten you'll love to use in your class or at home. Fun kindergarten worksheets to download!

Grab this entire week of amazing 5 senses preschool activities and worksheets. Use them for circle time, science centers, and fun learning.

Curriculum Map for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten for the whole year! Year plan, month plans, and week plans by theme.

Two Points: This is MY method, and not necessarily right for you, your teaching or care philosophy, your set-up, or your students. Curriculum participation by my students is VOLUNTARY. I invite them to participate, but if they choose not to, then that is fine. I usually offer them a choice of a few of the activities and let them decide where we start and where we go. An engaged child learns, a dis-engaged child rebels. The 3-year rotating curriculum is theme based. Some times we stick to the plan, but usually I observe what they are interested in learning about, what they are asking questions about, and suggest up to three different themes they can choose from for us to study. I make my own 3-year rotating curriculum for many reasons: Packaged curriculum is often only one year. Since I teach for 3 years, this would be redundant. Most packaged curriculum focuses on skills my students master early. My 2s count to 20, know 11 colors, know most of their phonics, uppercase and lowercase letters, 10 shapes and some of their numbers and I still have 3 years of curriculum to teach them. They often are worksheet intensive. My students usually are cognitively advanced from their fine motor skills. I have 4 year olds that still can't write well. If I had relied on worksheets for the last 2 years, there is no way they would have the skill sets they have. Worksheets are also not considered Developmentally Appropriate Practice [DAP] for children under the age of 8. We use them here for writing practice starting at age 4. [Yes, worksheet-intensive public schools are not using DAP for kindy through 3rd grade!] They can be expensive. If you are purchasing worksheets, why would you spend even $1 a week/$52 a year when you can purchase a 400 page Scholastic preschool workbook from Sam's Club for $8 that covers probably more material, is most likely aligned with the public school expectations, and is colorful. Colored copies are NOT affordable to make from packaged curriculum. Most [ALL!] preschool learning should be interactive. Pinterest is a better source for ideas. My students change every time I do a theme. I have to be able to tweak it to the interests and capabilities of those currently in my care. Plus, I'll find more interesting activities on Pinterest, have an idea for a new game, etc. It's a constant evolution to keep my curriculum relevant to our current group, situation and resources. However, curriculum planning and creation is very time consuming. Even with older curriculum I spend several hours going over it prior to teaching - updating, creating new materials, purchasing and setting new classroom decorations. While I have had my 3 year curriculum, this year I found myself wanting a more specific schedule to focus on specific skill sets for this particular group of children. Most of these skills can be incorporated into our themed curriculum, or they take 5 minute sessions to pop into our day. I have two groups, the younger preschoolers are 2-3 years old and the older ones are 4-5 years old, all at the same developmental and skill set level within their group. This makes it easier, as I can tailor everything to just 2 groups. If I were to have additional levels of children, then it would be tailored to each level. Children here are taught at their developmental level, not age. Asychronastic development is normal, so I may be teaching a child at various levels depending upon the subject matter. For the younger preschoolers, I came up with this structure. For the older pre-k students, I came up with this one. For instance, both of them have Measurement & Comparison on Friday for Reasoning. However, for the younger students, this would be a more/less, longer/shorter, big/little, etc. activity, while the older students would be measuring with rulers, yardsticks, tape measures, measuring cups, unit blocks, foot steps or themed units, and graphing the measurements to compare. Same skill set, differentiated at vastly different levels. Even this needs conditional tweaking. All the pre-k's know how to spell their last names now, so that is no longer a relevant skill activity for music and will be changed out. In another post I'll get into the curriculum components and the importance of each. For instance, how counting on Friday teaches 1-to-1 correspondence and creating method processes for counting groups of objects. CLICK PICTURES TO VIEW LARGER I use this MS Word template, available for FREE on TPT, for curriculum planning. Often, the daily skill sets above are either already incorporated, or can easily be incorporated, into the theme planning. For an example of a completed curriculum unit, check out our Owls Theme. Each monthly theme is broken down into 4 sub-themes. For instance: SPACE Astronauts & Rockets The Universe Our Solar System Aliens & Robots We also have a musical component, often classical, and an art component, often a master, and Spanish vocabulary component that we incorporate. This planning form may not include all games, file folder games, manipulatives, room-set up, etc. that I utilize. For those of you trained in curriculum creation, I do NOT do a full curriculum development for each activity. With having these children usually from infant to school-age, I keep an internal evaluation of progression and plan out only weekly learning objectives. Since I am creating the activities for my personal use, I do not need to create written procedures and evaluations. My curriculum is stored currently in file folders in a large office bookcase unit. I would like to get it into boxes so that I could have EVERY theme-related item, including dress-up, room set-up, manipulatives, etc. together for an easy pull. File boxes will most likely be the easiest, but they do take up a lot of space. In each file some of the things I probably have: Completed planning sheets All the books I own for that theme Flannel board Sentence and word walls File folder games Samples of previous crafts DVDs CDs Coloring pages Mini-book(s) Build-a-[theme item] game Curriculum creation is one of my great joys. I love the research and compilation, the creativity and excitement of bringing something fun and educational to my students. Learning is rarely linear. Children take developmental leaps, sometimes in odd directions. As a teacher, it is important that I keep each one challenged without pushing or inhibiting their growth, and that takes constant evaluation and a good eye for when those leaps happen so that we can move on to a higher level of instruction. When we do an activity, I constantly question if they WANT to do another round, another activity, and I usually cut them off while they are still engaged. I want them wanting more, and they will usually ask if they can continue. One of the most important desires and abilities I can instill in them is that of self-directed learning. So as they choose to go off with their rulers after we've spent several minutes doing a measuring activity, conferring between themselves as to procedures and what to measure next, I step back and let them. They know I am here as a resource, rather than an intrusive director. It is my job to ensure that when I invite my students to learn, they glow with excitement and anticipation of a fun, interactive, playful time. The results, so far, have been astounding. A few of my complete curriculum units are available through my TPT store. Apples Dental Ice Cream Penguins Rainbows St. Patrick's Day Valentine's Follow Connie -'s board Classroom on Pinterest. Tags: preschool, child care, pre-k, curriculum, development, teaching, education, homeschooling, homeschool, home, school, preschool curriculum development, planning

This quick and EASY frankenworms experiment demonstrates baking soda and vinegar chemical reaction with fun halloween activities for October.

If you're new to homeschooling, you might think you need to know all about everything. Here's what first time homeschool moms need to know.

Spending the first week of school teaching classroom expectations and procedures is essential for a successful year. Glue is a tricky school supply for many little learners and there definitely needs to be instruction dedicated to teaching learners how to use this tool.Glue BottlesWhen learners are not taught how to use their glue correctly things

Team-building activities for kids can help them in myriad ways. These activities teach the value of cooperation, listening, taking turns, and more. Read on.

These Fingerprint Bugs are so simple and fun for the kiddos. I love seeing what my kids come up with.

These "quiet critters" are amazingly effective!

Today I'm excited to have Corrina from From Mrs. Allen's Teaching Files here to share a really fun and exciting activity to use when talking about self control. Self control is such a hard

Use these 101 after school club ideas for kids to help you form your own club. School clubs are a great way to help kids develop a number of skills such as social, problem solving, and critical thinking. Whether you are looking to start a math club, science, club, theatrical club, or even a sports based club this is

Kids will have fun while learning where do I Live with this printable activity perfect for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students.

Free reading comprehension passages for grades 2 - 3

Try these fun brain break ideas to help active kids stay focused and learn at their best like yoga, Go Noodle, and printable cards.

Are you looking for a way to work on first grade math skills? This free packet is for you! It could be used for learning in the classroom or at home! This packet works on

These human body for kids activities allow children to learn about the heart, muscles, lungs, 5 senses, bones organs, cells, and so much more!

It is the first week of kindergarten! What do I teach? I get this question all the time! I am so excited to put together this page together for you. I’m sharing our favorite first week of kindergarten read aloud stories and the free coordinating printables I made to go with them. Plus I will s

11 free, printable Dot Sticker Art Activities for Kids. Kids place dot stickers on pictures according to a key to make awesome dot art.

Adding a Morning Menu to our homeschool routine to practice and sharpen daily skills. Check out this fun printable set!

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For our learners who need to work on foundational learning skills, such as simple matching, I have always love creating hands on task boxes put-in tasks and color sorting tasks. My classroom closet always looked like it could be featured on an episode of hoarders. I kept every shoe box, coffee container, baby jar, and

Best Christian homeschool curriculum: BJU Press, Abeka, My Father's World, Apologia, Notgrass, Veritas Press, Masterbooks & Compass Classroom.

Freedom Homeschooling lists free homeschool life skills electives for all grades. Home economics, personal finance, auto repair, and more!

Buzz through spring with the Bee Pollination STEAM Activity! Now that more and more bees are coming out after the cold winter, it's the perfect time to teach children about how bees and flowers help each other out to accomplish each other's goals: Flowers getting pollinated and bees gathering nectar for honey. Children will enjoy flying their little bee buddies around and helping them gather pollen to deliver from flower to flower.

Don’t you just hate it when you finally get the hang of a reading or math program, and your district (or admin) decide it’s time to start using something new? I mean you’d think they’d know better than to mess with a teacher’s software… When that happened at my school, we were told to “trust the process” The only problem with that is that while the “process is going on”, we’re in the trenches having to figure out how to make things work. When my school first switched to i-Ready, it took me a while to get the hang of it. But after a few months, I figured out a system that worked well for ME + MY KIDDOS So, if you’re feeling frustrated, just like I was in the beginning, please know that YOU•ARE•NOT•ALONE! Hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll have a few new ideas to get you started. The first step is to set up student folders You’ll need a folder for each student, printed iReady labels, and a copy of the iReady student recording sheet. (If you’re interested in a free copy, simply enter your email in the form down below […]