Developing Early Reading Skills: It All Starts with Sounds

The more we learn about how children develop reading skills, the more we understand that it all begins with sounds. In fact, a child’s ability to play with the sounds within a word (rhyming, inventing rhymes, adding or removing the sounds within a word) is a key indicator of a child’s future success in developing [...]

Great Ideas for Making Music Outdoors

Music has the power to lift us- body, mind and spirit. This is especially true for young children. Making and moving to music promotes all areas of development: physical- coordination, muscle tone, fine and gross motor skills develop as children play instruments or dance to music cognitive- creating and listening to music includes problem solving, [...]

Using Play to Boost Academic Skills

The case for play in early childhood gets stronger and stronger every day. The more we learn about how children grow and develop, the more we see that children need to play to flourish- socially, emotionally AND academically. A recent article in Newsweek’s The Daily Beast, Let Preschoolers Play! says: a growing body of research [...]

Secrets of a Well Run Early Childhood Classroom

Young children are wonderful, energetic little beings full of enthusiasm and a zest for life. In a well-run classroom, children are like little bees, their energy a quiet buzz. It is a joy to be these classrooms and watch young minds at work- engaged, curious, making discoveries. But in other classrooms, the bees are like [...]

Tips For Bringing Structure to Transitions

Transitions are hard for nearly all young children (and their teachers!). Active children take advantage of these “free” moments to run, play or otherwise test boundaries. Children who like order become uncomfortable or nervous with the lack of structure or unclear expectations. Here are a few tips to help bring structure to those moments of [...]