Caffeinate and Teach

During the past few weeks, we have been working in our classroom to create an alphabet wall. We started working on this by taking a children's dictionary and exploring it with the children, discussing the words and meanings and choosing several words for each letter of the alphabet to represent on the wall with drawings done by the children. It was a really interesting time with the children, partly because the dictionary we used, a children's picture dictionary, used words that the children weren't particularly familiar with. For example, in the M section, there was a picture of a parrot. Weird right? but the word to go along with the picture was "mimic". This gave my co-teacher and I an opportunity to not only introduce new vocabulary to the children but expand on their thought process and help them to "think outside the box".  We were also able to introduce them to vocabulary such as "adjective" , "verb" and "adverb". The...

"Look through the window and who do you see? I see _____ looking back at me. Hello! Hello! Hello! and how are you? I'm fine! I'm fine! and I hope that you are too!"   These are the words to a children's song that I often use in the classroom in small groups, for transitions and just for fun. As a lab school teacher, this song is the story of my life. If you follow my co-worker Sharon's blog, you will have read her post on "life in a fish bowl". See, when you teach at a lab school there is always the chance of someone being in the observation booth watching your teaching style, activities and interactions with children. This can feel like a ton of pressure! I have worked in lab schools for the past 11, almost 12 years. Over half of the time I have spent as an early childhood educator has been in this type of environment, and I LOVE IT! I get the unique experience of teaching preschoolers and helping to teach college aged students at the same tim...