A benefit of working two mornings a week is that I have the joy of visiting JK and K rooms, working with educators to create calm and creative classroom environments. As you may know this is something I love to do - work with educators to create spaces that they love to work in and that works for children. These spaces are created for children with intention and knowledge for the age and developmental levels.  I have made a small list of the elements that I have been using in classrooms: 1.     Reduce visual clutter and create space in the room for the eyes to rest. We know from research that the child's brain is calmed by restful and warm environments (as is mine). 2.     Think of the classroom as flexible play zones. If a zone is popular create duplicates of a zone like construction, sensory and art to encourage smaller play groups. Make sure that you have all of the needs: writing, math, story, games, construction, creativity, social.... 3.     Repl......

Daily math warm ups are intended to be a quick number activity warm up their thinking. They are not meant to be something that takes a long time. Warm Ups: Number Mingle: leader calls out a number and children form groups of the number Same But Different: show different number pictures of the same number such as four ways to show the number 5. This can be used also if you begin with a question of the day. Counting Circle: children choose leader, they count from 0-10 and back down to 0. The person who is 0 sits down. This is an elimination game This or That. Leader calls out a yes or no questions. Children move from the left to the right depending on the answer yes or no. Quick Images: Leader flashes a dot number and students name number. Leader can ask what two numbers to they see?  Daily math frameworks are intended to offer repetition of familiar concepts like adding, composing or decomposing. Students work independently with a learning partner . Frameworks: Counting Collections ......