Going “green” in preschool

I recently attending a local workshop in my state called Greening your Early Childhood Center. (Sponsored by the Connecticut Children’s Investment Partnership and the CCAC Accreditation Facilitation Project ). We learned about ways we can reduce energy and water use, create a healthy environment and save costs in our early childhood programs. There have been great advances in “green design” for new buildings and facilities
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Displaying children’s names in preschool

When Tressa and I decided to start writing a blog as part of our website, one of the main reasons for wanting to do this was to be able to provide information and support to early educators and parents and start discussions. We LOVE to receive questions from visitors to our website and blog! We received the following early literacy question from a preschool
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R is for Relaxation

We are honored to participate in a fun “blog hop” called “The ABC’s of Teaching Preschool“, organized by the awesome Deborah of Teach Preschool! Today she reached an incredible milestone of 20,000 “likes” on her Facebook page! Deborah does so much to support early childhood professionals with her blog and her presence on social media – that we are thrilled to be able celebrate with her
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Crafty 4 Kids Giveaway: “I am Uniquely Made” paper dolls!

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER… Jennifer C.! Winner notification has been sent by email. Thanks so much to all who visited and participated! We are excited to participate in the Crafty Kits 4 Kids Giveaway Event with 13 other crafty bloggers! The event will run from August 1st – 13th. (Winners will be drawn on August 14th). Hop around to each blog and enter in one or
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Literacy Beginnings – Chapter 22: Observing reading behaviors in preschool

We are nearing the end of our book study of “Literacy Beginnings” (Fountas & Pinnell). I have enjoyed all the ideas that I’ve gathered from the book and other bloggers in the Blog Party. We are now at the part of the book that talks about how to assess literacy learning in preschoolers. Now maybe that doesn’t sound as exciting as some of the
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Literacy Beginnings – Chapter 25: An end-of-prekindergarten checkup

We are wrapping up our review of how to assess literacy learning in young children as part of the Book Study Blog Party review of the book “Literacy Beginnings” (Fountas & Pinnell). Today’s post is on chapter 25, which provides four simple systematic assessments you can use at the end of prekindergarten to help you record the growth of your students, and provide information
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Literacy Beginnings – Chapter 24: Observing for sound, letter and word knowledge

We continue on with talking about how to assess literacy learning in young children as part of the Book Study Blog Party review of the book “Literacy Beginnings” (Fountas & Pinnell). In chapter 22 we talked about ways teachers can observe reading behaviors. Chapter 23 discusses ways teachers can observe writing behaviors by watching children in shared, interactive and independent writing activities. We are
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Improving literacy through sign language

I’m Colleen Brunetti, and I’m pretty excited to join you all here on the SEEDS Blog! Before I dive into my topic, for today, I wanted to take just a minute to further introduce myself. Perhaps you’ve read my bio – primarily the list of professional pursuits and passions I find myself chasing. But to know how I got here, I have to look back there, way back, to
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Using visual timers in preschool

We have used audio timers in our preschool classroom for years. The timer will buzz when it’s time to clean up toys or when snack time is over. The timer has been used to help children in sharing toys – if a child wants to play with a toy that another child has, teachers will set the timer and when it goes off, it’s
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Literacy Beginnings – Chapter 23: Observing writing behaviors in preschool

As we continue to review “Literacy Beginnings” (Fountas & Pinnell) as part of the Book Study Blog Party – we will now look at ways to assess writing behaviors in young children. Similar to observing reading behaviors, teachers can observe writing behaviors by watching children in shared, interactive and independent writing activities. Shared/Interactive Writing Shared and interactive writing is when teachers and children write
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