Since I have a student teacher for the next few weeks I have a little bit of free time. Most of it will be used for assessment, planning and working with small groups, but I am hoping to set aside a little bit of time for developing classroom resources. I will be adding to my science exploration tubs and would love ideas from my blogging friends. Here's my vision: I would like the Kinders to access the tubs during morning play centres and afternoon quiet centres. The centres will be exploratory, independent and hands on. I purchased some science resources last year when I was fundraising but  this year we have not fundraised, so nothing has been added. I have about twenty dollars leftover from my hollow block purchase and will be spending that on these centres. I would like to have a couple of books in each tub and so will look for used one at the thrift stores. So far I have purchased goggles, magnifying glasses and bug jars. These are the existing centres...

Last year I moved to a different school and a new classroom leaving behind a wonderful room filled with every resource needed for primary learners. The hardest thing to leave behind was the class set of hollow blocks. It was a huge, old set that had been discarded by schools in the district and reclaimed for my room piece by piece over several years. Each day the children would build dens, spaceships, schools, houses, forts, and anything else they could imagine. The custodian gave them permission to leave the structures standing if they were on the block building carpet. We loved those blocks and I have missed them every day.   Last year with a tiny budget and large resource list I had to focus on building collections of unit blocks, puzzles, science tools, literacy resources and manipulatives like lego and zoobs. I sold a ton of ice cream and we made big gains. But every day I wished for hollow blocks. They are so expensive that it takes a few years to build up a collectio...

As Kindergarten teachers most of are familiar with block play and how children's imaginations are fostered through it. Many of my Kinders play with blocks each day and the rule is that loose parts have to be tidied up at the end of play time, but that structures and enclosures can stay as long as they are on the block area carpet. On Friday we ran into a little dilemma- tidying up loose parts and shelf block play. A group of about six Kinders were working on a project over several days and ran out of room. Braxten was sitting between the enclosures and the shelves where blocks are stored. He turned and spied the now empty shelf and voila! He started building ramps and mini enclosures on the empty shelves. Within minutes his building team were working with him. At tidy up time they couldn't imagine taking down their new block world so that the loose parts could be stacked. After a short discussion, they decided that small loose parts went into the storage boxes under th...

      I received this top 10 award from Sue over at The Very Busy Kindergartener. I was really surprised and delighted that she thought of me since this is one of my favourite sites to visit.  Sue has many, many great ideas and is very generous with resources. Please take a few minutes to visit her site.  In the meantime I will consider which of the fab sites that I stalk to pass the award to.                                                ...

I found an invitation in my mailbox today from Kelly at Young and Lively Kindergarten. She has tagged me this weekend on a cute little bloggy survey. I think it is a great idea. We read each other's blogs (dare I say stalk) and I know I am interested in all of you! This is the first one like this I've been tagged in, and I thought it would be a cute way to let you know a little about myself. Here Are The Rules: * Post these rules. * Answer the 10 questions that the tagger posted for you. * Create 10 questions of your own to ask the people that you're about to tag. 1. What is your funniest teaching moment or story? I had an unexpected stay in the hospital a couple of years ago and one of my students insisted that he send me a dozen roses "because that's what you do for people you love". His parents agreed and they were promptly delivered to the hospital with a personal note handwritten by him. My husband's response, "do I have to worry about h...