We’ve all heard of teaching to the test, and we all know that this strategy has no long-term success for children’s learning. Instead, I suggest “teaching to the brain”….using what we know about how the brain develops to influence what we do in our classrooms. During the first five years of life, the brain develops…
Using worksheets in preschool classrooms is problematic. I was teaching a class recently, and I noticed a common theme. As much as teachers have heard that using worksheets in preschool is not appropriate, they seem to have a hard time letting go of them. Some teachers believe that worksheets have value to children. Others think…
Math, especially number sense, is one of my favorite areas to plan for in the preschool classroom. Sometimes teachers focus so much on the counting sequence that they forget about the other number sense activities. What is Number Sense? Number sense for preschoolers is a group of related math abilities that are key predictors of…
There are so many types of challenging behaviors. We always talk about how important it is to build relationships with children, but let’s be real. Some children are just really hard to build relationships with. My Story When I first went back to school to get my early childhood degree, one of my professors went…
Building positive relationships is an essential component of an early childhood classroom. One of my favorite quotes is by Jack Shonkoff, editor of the book Neurons to Neighborhoods, in which he says, “Without relationships, there is no development.” In other words, if children do not develop positive relationships with the significant people in their lives,…
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how we may or may not respect children’s social preferences. So often, we forget that children are human too. In other words, they have bad days, grumpy moods, and sometimes don’t want to be social. Yesterday was one of those days where I did not feel like being social. I…
Creating literacy-rich environments is certainly a buzz phrase in preschool classrooms. It seems that everyone is always looking for new literacy activities to make their preschool classrooms literacy-rich. But, unfortunately, what appears to be missing from a lot of these conversations is meaning. It’s not enough to just have a lot of print in your…
Not all classrooms should try to teach a second language. This article explores the pros and cons of teaching another language in your classroom.