What an upside-down, unpredictable, and uncertain world we live in right now, or that is what the media would like us to think. Step back, take a big breath, and reflect on what makes you grateful.

Children first need our guidance to build a foundation that then can be deepened with play exploration. So how about playful instruction with planful play guiding our preK implementation?

Summer is coming and it’s time for play. Keep literacy learning a part of each day! Word play is fun and easy to do. Think of the words for the things around you.

Social emotional learning is a prevalent topic in education today, with a recognition that how children feel is as important as their academic growth. However, this perspective infers there is a dichotomy of skill sets, social emotional skills and academic skills. To this point, some early childhood programs have intentionally focused on young children’s social emotional skills and discouraged including academically related skills with a sense that social emotional skills need to develop before children are able to learn other skills. Consider these skill sets as all interconnected and integrated, instead of being a dichotomy, and that social emotional learning is dependent on executive function skills, which are interrelated to cognition, which is connected to oral language. Social emotional learning develops as we effectively learn to use the background knowledge we have gained through experiences and skills acquired to help us with tasks

Most likely, you are reading this on a screen as opposed to a printed hard copy. Our use of screen-based media with smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions, DVDs, and screen-based games has increased significantly for us, as adults, and for our children.