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 […]
Anytime children can sort something by one defining characteristic, they are exploring the mathematical concept of “attributes.” I found this website that has loads of games, but this one in particular is nice. Children sort the items found on the screen into any categories they choose (there is no right and wrong) and then they […]
When I was little- around 3 or 4, legend has it that I was in the grocery store with my mom, when we bumped into our neighbor. My mother and this woman spent a moment or two catching up and chit chatting while I played in the shopping cart. When it was time to go, […]
I love pie. I love pumpkin, sweet potato, apple, cheery, streusel, and french silk. I love it a la mode, with whipped cream, warmed up, or straight from the refrigerator. You get the picture. This Counting Pie is a great way for children to explore the concept of attributes. This manipulative would be a great […]
On January 11th, the New York Times published an op ed piece about parent-teacher communication. The article was clearly focused on communication throughout the school years rather than simply during early childhood, however many of the points are relevant to our work. It got me thinking about email communications and how often they can cause […]
Has anyone seen this new commercial for Subaru? (This is not a plug for the Subaru car company but it may be a plug for the advertising firm that they use.) In 30 short seconds this commercial depicts a notion about supporting children’s ideas so successfully that it speaks for itself. I have been trying […]
The US government has a lot of great resources for teachers, centers, schools, and home care providers. This page at www.childcare.gov is chock full of helpful sites for child care providers. There are pages dedicated to small business enterprises as well as pages that will describe funding sources, grants and loan applications. Take a look!