I first heard about Jack Hartmann’s music from a colleague about nine years ago, all it took was one song and I was hooked. I started with the Rhymin’ to Read nursery rhyme CD then worked my way up to Hip Hop Alphabop, the rest is history! While most early childhood teachers are familiar with his music, we’re not all familiar with Jack himself ...

Race to the Top is a fun game that can be adapted for many different skills and levels. You can use these types of games to practice letter recognition, sight words, or even numbers. In the picture above you can see the Spring Alphabet Race to the Top game, in the picture below you can see the sight word version of the game. To prepare ...

The winner of Karen’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus packet is Karen B! The winner was selected using an on-line random number generator. Thank you to everybody who entered, we had 228 entries. Stay tuned for another contest that is going to knock your socks off! '); //-->

I recently wrote about my Fire Drill Failure but today I’m going to focus on Fire Drill Fixes. Every year there’s always one teacher frantically trying to get his or her students to behave or during a fire drill. Then there’s the entire class that was caught off guard and is crying hysterically. The bottom line is that fire drills can be ...

Have you ever had a fire drill failure? Fire drills in any early childhood classroom are so chaotic it’s difficult not to fail. Getting the kids out of the building at lightning speed is next to impossible, especially in the beginning of the year when all they want to do is cry or wander aimlessly into the street. Have you ever tried to get ...

This Valentine themed activity for practicing sight words is super simple yet still tons of fun for little ones. You will need one magnetic cookie tray or other magnetic surface per child, paper Valentine hearts, tape, sight word cards, and magnetic letters. You could also have the students match upper to lowercase letters on the trays. The ...

This is a highly engaging and fun activity to help your students practice their sight words during your Valentine’s Day unit. To create this game you will need several different types of student Valentine cards, a marker, envelopes, laminating film, and mini mailboxes or other containers. First, write one sight word on the back of each ...

This fun syllable game is always big hit with preschoolers and kindergarteners alike around Valentine’s Day. To create this activity you will need three Valentine mailboxes, a marker, construction paper hearts, a glue stick, and the 1, 2, and 3 syllable cards. I found the Valentine mailboxes pictured above at the Target Dollar Spot. First, ...

This is a fun activity to practice beginning sounds during your Valentine’s Day unit. To create this activity you will need Valentine containers, objects that begin with sounds your students are learning to identify, a marker, index cards, tape, and a paper bag. I found the Valentine buckets at the Target Dollar Spot. The objects pictured ...

In addition to a garden themed classroom library and flower pot birthday board I was looking for a way to display student pictures using clay flower pots. When I stumbled across these foam flower shapes at the Dollar Tree I knew I was on to something. This project is not actually finished yet but I couldn’t wait to share it with you because ...