Learning and Teaching with Preschoolers Blog

Spice Up Your Sensory Table

3/10/2019

Sensory table activities are always my kiddos top choice during center time. The key to getting them there week after week is by changing out the filler and tools frequently to keep the learning fresh and engaging.

When it comes to filling your sensory table, the ideas are only limited to your imagination. Get creative and think about what you would have liked to play and explore with as a child. This is your opportunity to do something that you always wanted to do.

Think about what you want your outcome to be before changing out the sensory table. If you are wanting children to experiment with volume, then make sure that you include a variety of containers in different sizes. Include items such as acorns so children can discover that it takes more popcorn kernels than acorns to fill the containers.

Print the list below and I challenge you to changing out your sensory table weekly or biweekly.

Start by picking one or two types of fillers. Enhance the learning by picking items from the scoops and containers list and spice it up even more by adding an item from the extras list.

sensory_table_fillers_2019.pdf
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Luck of the Irish Bin

Gardening Bin

Coffee Shop Bin

Airplane Small World Play

Water Beads and Shaving Cream

Cup Cake Bin

Winter Wonderland Small World

Pumpkin Patch Bin

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Keeping Head Lice at Bay

10/8/2017

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It is every preschool teacher’s nightmare to be sitting at carpet time, only to notice one of your littles keeps scratching their head.

If your anything like me you instantly start to feel like something is crawling on your head and you start to scratch too. You take a deep breath and say to yourself I need to check my little for head lice.

Make sure that your classroom doesn’t spread the little critters by
Spraying

Napping Cots or Mats
Dress Up Clothes
Dress Up Hats
Pillows
Soft Animals

I don’t like using chemicals on myself so if I can avoid using them around my littles in my classroom I do. I like to turn to natural remedies whenever I can.
And did you know that natural remedies really work!

Lice are Not Nice Spray

Add 8oz of distilled water to an 8oz glass spray bottle.
Add 10 drops of doTERRA Melaleuca essential oil and 10 drops of doTERRA Lavender essential oil to the bottle.
Shake bottle every morning and spray items that could harbor those not so nice lice.

Note: the quality of the oils you use is important! Many oils that you can find in health food stores and large box stores can be contaminated with pesticides, additives or synthetic fragrances. This defeats the purpose of going with a natural solution. Learn about the pure, premium quality oils I recommend. HERE

Have you been waiting to get started with natural cleaning and health options? Now is a great time to start learning and using pure natural doTERRA essential oils. Enroll this month and get three extra oils FREE and one bottle of On Guard cleaner concentrate. When you enroll with the Home Essentials Kit. (offer ends 10/31/2017)
Send me a DM to get started.

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Meaningful Calendar Time in Preschool

7/31/2017

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Calendar time has always been a part of the preschool classroom. But we have been hearing a lot of debate on it lately if it is really a developmentally appropriate activity for preschool.

As I began to dig a little deeper into my own calendar time, I discovered that I need to make some changes so that it was more meaningful to the children, but there were a few things that I wanted to keep too. See what I did in the video below.

I liked how calendar time provide a way for children to count and recognize numbers.

I also like how it gives us an opportunity to have meaningful conversations about what might happened at home or what we might be doing at school in the future.

Children always enjoy talking about things that have happened or will happen.

The event and holiday cards give us the opportunity to talk about things that will happen and also give us the opportunity to discuss what we did at a special event.

With the birthday cards we can find out who is having a birthday and how many of our friends will be celebrating their birthday in the same month.

Days at Home or No School cards give children the opportunity to count how many days they will be at home each month. They will also discover the pattern of having two days off each week.

Children always like talking about the weather and how it makes them feel. The weather cards are a great way for children to document the weekly or monthly weather patterns.

Children will be able to graph out the monthly weather to see which type of weather happened the most.

This calendar packet will help make calendar time meaningful for preschool children. It has been designed to help you have meaningful conversations around the calendar. You will be able to ask children questions based on events that will occur or that have occurred. Giving children, the tools needed to help them understand past, present and future events. Also with this calendar, you will also be able to collect data about the weather and document the findings.

Meaningful Calendar Time for Preschool