Since the beginning of school, our sweet little ones have been busy learning and doing the important work of scientists, explorers, mathematicians, readers, and writers.  Already, they have made so much growth... and they have so much more growing to do before the...

I have no doubt in my mind that these sweet little ones of ours can be anything... maybe not a cowboy or a unicorn rider... but more than they imagine right now.  I think this movie, the product of our study about the people who are part of and help our community,...

Last week, I wrote about the magic of referring to students as mathematicians, scientists, writers, readers, and more.  However, I do not merely call our sweet little ones all of these things.  I treat them as these things too.  In my mind, they are scientists,...

Word scientists.  Mathematicians.  Writers.  Readers.  Inventors.  Explorers.  Stop motion movie makers.  I refer to our little ones as all of these things throughout the day, and it works a little magic.  Suddenly, our kindergartners do not just see themselves as...

One of the most exciting things I get to do as your little one's kindergarten teacher is teach them how to read.  I hope to help each and every one of my students fall in love with books, with traveling to another place and experiencing an adventure within it's pages,...

If you walk into our math class, it looks a lot like playing.  Throughout the year in kindergarten, the Bridges math curriculum is set up in the workshop model.  Students are directly taught a concept during a group lesson and then they spend the majority of their...

At the beginning of each school year, we guide students in creating their hopes and dreams for that year.  In my classroom, it looks like discussing all of the exciting things that we will do together in kindergarten and having each student choose a few that they are...

This week, we continued learning about community, this time focusing on how our classroom is part of something bigger.  It's part of our school - Pacific Northern Academy - which is a pretty special place.  We brainstormed a list of the people in our PNA community:...

The first weeks of school are always dedicated to creating the classroom community, a community where our students feel loved and supported, where they can learn, try new things, take risks, and help each other learn.  In short, we create the environment that will...

For the past few weeks, we've embarked on an inquiry that culminated in shading a snake (made from UV sensitive beads) from the sun.  We started out by studying the sun's energy, how the solar system revolves around the sun, and how all life depends on the sun. ...