Come Play With Us!
One of my main goals for this summer has been to make our house feel like a home. Last August we experienced a whirlwind of change- we moved to a new home in a new community, and one week later I started my new teaching job. Although we managed to get the necessities unpacked in a few weeks and had a few cosmetic updates done here and there, things … {read more}
Oh my loves, Motherhood is the most exquisite pain. Every time I pick you up and feel your soft cheek on my skin, your hot breath on my neck, I die a tiny death knowing that this could be the last time you ask me to hold you. You are both growing so quickly, becoming so strong and asking so many questions about your world. It’s an amazing gift … {read more}
I'm smart. But I'm not very brave. I'm smart enough to know that for my family, homeschooling makes sense. That the freedom to cultivate a lifelong love of learning unmarred by drills and testing and inappropriate standards is something I am lucky to be able to take advantage of. That I may not have a crystal ball to see into our … {read more}
Summer is upon us here in Texas, and despite the already suffocating heat, I am ecstatic. These past few weeks of sunshine have been a welcome relief from an unbelievably turbulent stretch of weather- rain, severe storms, flooding, and more rain have rocked our region and caused some serious damage and even loss of life. Our little lakefront … {read more}
This week at school we have a special field trip planned- we're going to a real working farm! Naturally I wanted to plan explorations in the classroom that would tie in with the excitement of our farm visit, and I thought I'd show you one of the most simple ones today- painting with "straw" brushes at the easel. Seriously, this couldn't be much … {read more}
Last week I added a new element to our circle time routine in my two- and three-year-olds classes...a simple weather check. I wanted some sort of hands-on manipulative to keep the children engaged and make the concept of weather more tangible, so I decided to try my hand at making some simple weather sensory bottles. These sensory bottles only took … {read more}
Recently I was asked to give a talk on play-based learning to a group of interested parents and teachers. Since this is a topic near and dear to my heart, I agreed immediately...it's a subject I could talk about for days! It was such a great experience- we held the meeting in my classroom, and after my presentation I pulled in my sensory table for … {read more}
Hi friends! Last week we started exploring community helpers in my two- and three-year-old classroom. I was prepared to talk about several different "heroes," but the children were so excited about firefighters that we never even moved on from that theme! For our sensory table, I wanted to come up with a hands-on activity that would spark lots … {read more}
Play-based learning is a lot of things. It's messy, vibrant, and exuberant. When it's clicking, when it's really humming, it's a joy to watch. In short, it's one of the most beautiful things you'll ever see, if you can really appreciate what you are looking at. This is the "touch table" that lives in my classroom. Well, actually, on the back … {read more}
