This is a nice game for sorting by attributes. Sid the Science Guy is putting rocks in a box and he needs them sorted by color. As children get better and better at putting the colored rocks in the correct columns, the game becomes more complex. Sid gives kids positive reinforcement when they sort the […]
On January 13th, the Illinois State Board of Education published a revision of the former Early Learning Standards- now called the Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards. (Finally, they are including the word “development” in something referring to young children.) These have been presented in draft form, and are available for open comment as the […]
These attribute maps are pretty great- but you certainly don’t have to buy them. With a white piece of paper, a ruler and a marker, you can make them on your own. These store-bought maps have the words “Science Sort”at the top which I find interesting. Shouldn’t it just say “Sort” so children can sort […]
It is not unusual for programs to design a handful of backpacks that are meant to be borrowed by families so that books can be shared in a systematic way. If you wanted to try and get something like this together, it can be done fairly easily. First, you need some backpacks. They don’t have […]
Did you know that when children play “make-believe” and assume the roles of different characters in the play, they are using “attributes” to define themselves as their characters? So, if two children go over to the housekeeping area and one becomes the “daddy” and one becomes the “baby” you can ask questions that will help […]
It was months and months ago when I originally wrote about “Teachable Moments” and how to find them throughout the day. I’ve been thinking a lot about how so much of the learning that happens in the early childhood world occurs in a happenstance way, rather than intentionally. That does not mean that teachers of […]
Even though you have heard my ideas about holidays and how they should be left at home, I make an exception when it comes to Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day provides umpteen opportunities for children to explore language and literacy, notions of friendship and family, as well as math. This means that the opportunities for learning […]
Remember when you were in middle school or high school and your teacher asked you to create a Venn Diagram to sort out attributes that were either shared or not shared? You drew two large overlapping circles on a piece of paper like this… You then sorted the attributes into 3 categories; shared attributes, […]
In honor of National Library Lovers Month, I want to explore ways in which we can share our love of books with the families in our programs. Since we will be looking at children’s books that support early math learning in general (throughout the coming month), I thought we could share ideas about how we […]
Whenever I think of February, I always think first of my birthday and then immediately afterward of Valentine’s Day. Even though I think Valentine’s Day is worth exploring with young children, for a variety of reasons that I will talk about nearer to that day, I think that exploring National Library Lovers Month as a […]