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"For the typical American kindergartner, unstructured free play during the school day consists of 20 to 30 minutes of recess, and perhaps some time at indoor "stations" - perhaps creating with building blocks, costumes, or musical instruments. But what if there was more? What if the answer to "what did you do in school today?" was, "I climbed a tree, played in the mud, built a fire"? That is exactly the kind of learning going on in the Swiss Waldkindergartens, or forest kindergartens, where children ages four to seven spend all of their school days playing outdoors, no matter the weather. With no explicit math or literacy taught until first grade, the Swiss have no set goals for kindergartners beyond a few measurements, like using scissors and writing one's own name. They instead have chosen to focus on the social interaction and emotional well-being found in free play."

How fun when you learn a little video editing. See what is possible? Even in Kindergarten?

"After teaching grades 7 and 8 for seven years, it was a challenge for me to go down to Kindergarten. The first few months, the way was treacherous. Now looking back, after eight months or so, I can say overall it has been a delight, and I know it was a gift I didn't even know I needed. I find I can practice what I learned in my Master's program; that is, teaching young children literacy. Most importantly, though, the children are "wonderful, marvelous, beautiful, magical, filled with curiosity and dreams." (Lyrics by Debbie Clement) They are loving and open. They are learning sponges with big, growing brains. But how can I do genius hour with them? I wondered. I loved the engaged ownership in junior highers when they were given a chance to learn what they wanted in what we call genius hour."

"Ms. Kelly's Kindergarten class has been hard at work on an animal research project that is unlike any other I've been a part of.  For the culmination of the project, students recorded an interview of an animal in its habitat using our green screen and the Do Ink app.  There were many layers to the process that students went through the create their final product. The class has been to the library throughout the project to initiate various pieces and then moved forward with the project work in class."

"December has been a busy month for us!  It's a really exciting month too!  Have you heard the saying that usually things click for kindergarten kids AFTER Christmas?  Well, I can happily say that things have really clicked for our classroom AFTER Thanksgiving.  Almost all of my students know their letters and sounds and have a huge bank of sight words that they know.  They are becoming so much more independent.  I love sitting back and watching them work.  This allows me to work with small groups or to get assessments done."

"BROOKLYN, New York - I'm sitting on the floor at The Academy of Talented Scholars (PS 682) in Bensonhurst, watching kindergarteners create robots on an iPad. It's one of the cutest things I've ever seen, and I don't even like children. The exercise is part of the curriculum led by co-teachers Stacy Butsikares and Allison Bookbinder, focused on helping the 5- and 6-year-old students come up with ways to solve problems. The first step is to identify a problem happening in the school. The kindergarteners come up with ideas like kids horsing around in the lunch line, or not throwing trash away properly, or making too much noise at recess. Students are instructed to create a robot that could solve the problem, and draw the robot on a piece of paper. Once the robot is sketched out, the real fun begins. Using the app The Robot Factory, these pint-sized problem-solvers bring their robot ideas to life."

"On Monday past, I emcee'd a Film Festival for students in Junior and Senior High. The festival was a huge hit thanks to my amazing team of colleagues and dozens of talented teens. But my proudest moment of the evening was one video in particular - created by a kindergarten class."

"If you've read my previous post about how we've been using Instagram in kindergarten, you'd know that we've been avid Instagrammers for the last couple of months. #mathphotoaday and #eduphotoaday have provided the basis for many terrific mini-lessons, and captioning photographs has provided authentic early writing practice. I've been amazed at how successfully my students have used Instagram and supporting apps such as Pic Collage, InstaCollage, and Color Splash. Last week, we were viewing our Instagram pictures on our SMART Board, and the kids were commenting on how beautiful a lot of them were. One little boy put up his hand and said, "Mrs. Caldwell, our Instagram pictures are so beautiful. I think that we should print them out and sell them and make money for our new playground." And just like that, a new project was born! Why does this always happen at the end of the school year when we have a million and one other things to do? But their enthusiasm was contagious and I agreed that it was a fantastic idea! And when a 6 year-old shows entrepreneurial spirit like that, who am I to stand in his way?"

"For many years, digital learning games have been helping kids of all ages build new skills, grasp difficult concepts and improve their understanding of school curriculum. Young children find these games especially engaging, which can be useful when it comes to teaching kindergarten math."

"How much do your kindergarten teacher and classmates affect the rest of your life? "

"A few years ago, I began shifting to a play-based approach in my kindergarten classroom. Research extolled the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional benefits of play and called to mind Friedrich Froebel's vision of kindergarten as a place where play and learning go hand in hand.  As I made small changes in my classroom, I began to understand that play is a primary and integral mode through which children make sense of the world, and that it is essential to their development and well-being. In addition, it supports skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity. Offering play can feel challenging when mandated programs and standardized tests are requirements of many school districts, but play-based learning is an effective practice for deepening understanding and engaging children. The key is finding a balance between academic expectations and the developmental needs of young students."

"The GREEN apps have a link to a post describing how I have used the app in my class. The underlined apps are new to the list. MANY of these apps I got for FREE, follow my Free App of the Day Pinterest board to get great FREE apps each day."

"I teach in a small rural school, and more than half of my students arrive and depart by bus everyday. So how do I maintain strong communication with parents when I rarely see them face-to-face? I send home a monthly calendar, and you may have read past posts about using clipboards with weekly sheets and Twitter, but my quickest and easiest tool for disseminating information quickly is Facebook! After posting daily to my classroom Facebook group for two years now, I've gleaned a few tips that I'm happy to share with you."

"It is easy to see that part of this problem is that the more time in school, the more disconnected it gets from how we learn"

"Recently, I tried to explain to a teacher from another school how we are trying to use iPads BEYOND apps. We have over 100 apps on our school iPads and introduce our students according to age level to a variety of them, but the focus of the use of the devices NEEDS to remain primarily as a tool for: exposing students to skills, characteristic of a "modern learner" critical thinking personal learning transformative learning workflow fluency anytime/anywhere/anyhow creating"

"During April all of the iPad apps and the majority of the iPhone apps are free!"