Kinder Kaleidoscope

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Kinder Kaleidoscope

"Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope." -Rosabeth Kanter

Creative teaching products for the creative Kindergarten teacher.

05/09/2021

We spent Mother's Day getting our garden all dug up and our seedlings in the ground! I love working outside with my kids and our feet and hands in the dirt. Now Wisconsin weather, please don't freeze my little seedlings! 🌱

Our carrot seeds didn't sprout, but everything else is in the ground and ready to grow!

05/03/2021

Sooo what if we skip spring and go right to summer? 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

Sunflowers are my favorite. They always have been. My kids say my dress goes with their sunflower seedlings. Obviously, that was what I dressed to match.

04/27/2021

I just had to share a few more spontaneous desk pets habitats! How perfect is it that this is exactly what we're doing in science right now?! We've been learning about habitats and biomes and OMG, the horse lives in the grasslands, the turtle is in a pond, and the whale is in the ocean! I just love how these brilliant 2nd graders applied what they learned with access to research tools.

These kids are so cool.

04/23/2021

An Earth Day lesson for my students and an Earth Day lesson for me...

"Let's make the world a more beautiful place!" I said today. 🌍

Making connections between the character Miss Rumphius working to make the world more beautiful, and our nonfiction text about the establishment of Earth Day, students brainstormed a list of things we could do to make the world more beautiful yesterday.

I told them our special Earth Day project had been guessed, but kept it a secret until ELA block today! By ELA, they were bursting with guesses.

We read a procedural text (ELA standards 🙌🏻) and followed the steps to germinate seeds in our window. Because there was a variety of seeds, they used the seed identification chart to try to guess what plant they had planted! Some of them already made the connection that their seed looked like part of the plant! (Hey! That's the understanding we're working toward next week when we work on our ELA standard to explain connections between the stages in the plant life cycle!)

Neat! Wow! NO! ❌

Now here's the kicker teacher friends, that I really, truly just don't have an explanation for...
Learn from my mistakes! (Or maybe take in an "oh no!" teacher moment if you already see it.)

As I was doing this, it didn't even occur to me how much plastic and paper I was using. 🤦🏼‍♀️This was the fun activity connected to a text I found and IT DIDN'T EVEN CROSS MY MIND. After we were done today, I looked up at the 16 plastic bags in my window all filled with paper towel and went...."What the heck am I doing?!?" So then, I asked my class what I could've done better in my planning to help the Earth even more. They knew.

So teacher reflection time: Next year I'll skip the plastic bags and go straight to reusable planters or (cardboard maybe?) and soil. Open to all suggestions! I know better, and will do better! Sorry I had to learn the hard way, Earth. 🌍

04/19/2021

I'm in full Wisconsin teacher protest-dress mode. It's April and 45 degrees. Let me wear my new spring things.....even if I have to cover it all with a winter coat and bring a pair full shoes for recess duty.

This teacher is fully over the cold, Wisco.

04/16/2021

The desk pets update I didn't know I'd give...These kids. 💖

04/14/2021

"I can explain how illustrations support the text."

After reading and analyzing We Are the Water Protectors, what better way to work to understand how illustrations support a text than illustrating yourself? My students did such a beautiful job experimenting with the natural symbols, and flowing watercolors used by Michaela Goade to capture how water connects us to our world.

Thank goodness for our brilliant art teacher who came to my rescue when I had an idea and no solid means or plan to execute. She supplied me with all the art materials and idea for how students could work with this technique in the illustrations. Collaboration is everything.

This beautiful book inspired so many wonderful and critical conversations in my classroom about protecting our water. Students quickly recognized the metaphor of the black snake looking like a pipe, which led us to dig deeper for information about pipelines and water and explore nonfiction texts that connect. (Oh hey, nonfiction text standards we totally and naturally want to engage with!!) Environmental and social justice themes are topics these eight-year-olds were ready to consider from many perspectives.

Side note: More than one kid told me today that I look like water, which was incredibly funny because they weren't wrong at all! I guess if there's a lesson theme on my brain, I might end up living it through my look that day. 🌊💁🏼‍♀️

04/13/2021

I know everyone has been waiting with baited breath to know what I put in my gumball machine. My student asked once an hour for 2 days.
The answer is desk pets! Thanks for all the fun suggestions! Desk pets were something stored in the back of my brain to try someday and this was the perfect opportunity.

We are all obsessed with them.

04/11/2021

I am BURSTING with excitement about Teacher Tom's Play Summit speaker line up!

A few speakers that have me jumping around my house rn:

1. If you dont know Teacher Tom you need to. He is a champion of children and honoring their right to play and learn. His blog keeps me grounded in the values of childhood that all educators need to carry with them.

2. the co-founder of is speaking to engage educators in social justice and defending liberating play in education.

3. Peter Gray, author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life is on board! The title of that career-changing book says it all.

4. Roberta Pucci is an accomplished atelierista specializing in the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood and the power of creativity and nature. This approach is literally why I studied Early Childhood Education.

5. RAFFI is going to be there! I know we know and love his songs. That's just a fraction of the reason to love . His work to help us all understand is critical in our daily care of children.

And that's just 5 of the 27 powerhouse play advocates lined up to speak!!

If you're an upper grade educator and aren't sure what early childhood education has to do with you, I promise you...everything. I use my ECE training every day even if I'm teaching children over 5. Play is essential. Respect for the children we teach and their thoughts, their autonomy and their development is essential.

Teacher friends, parent friends, caregiver friends, this the place to be! Use the link in Teacher Tom's bio to register for the FREE event.

Play can change the world. 🌍

04/08/2021

These mini filled and blank ten frames have become a fast favorite math tool for me and my students during guided math.

2nd grade math standards have high demands for place value understanding, but I have many students still working toward mastery of tens and ones. It's just something they need to see over and over. Manipulatives are important, and I use a lot of different models. But as my students move toward working in numbers, I find this little trick is all they need to see patterns they miss in the numbers. Also my group time is limited, so I'll take the fastest possible option.

Pulling out this quick support and shifting responsibilities so that my students are building their problems opens so many conversations. How do we know how many tens or ones? What's the most efficient way to count? How do tens and ones relate to each other? How do we write our thinking to match our model after we solve?

What are your favorite quick math tools?

04/06/2021

What should I put in my gumball machine?!

After about 2 years of sitting in my garage, I finally got this beauty to school. So I want something fun to fill it with that my students can opt for when they cash in their points for a reward...

Yes, I know it could be gumballs, but there are so many other cool prize possibilities too!

What would you fill it with?

04/02/2021

New Blog Post!
https://bit.ly/3mn1BQf

I finally sat down on my spring break to write down everything I've learned hybrid teaching since September. I've survived it. It's my new routine. I know a lot of teachers are going into it for the first time with all the school transitions happening. So here it is teacher friends: The things I wish I had known when I started in September. I listed so many resources that I use daily and talked about how I manage. This is what works for me. I hope there's something you can pull from it and use, teacher friends!

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Milwaukee, WI

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