Classroom Activities and Lessons Archives

Kindergarten Cafe

Welcome to Kindergarten Cafe - your home for teaching ideas, activities, and strategies across all content areas! I am Zeba McGibbon and I love creating resources for teachers and sharing my teaching experience with others. Kindergarten Cafe is aimed for kindergarten, but teachers of Preschool-First grade can find resources here for their students! I love to connect with other teachers so please reach out and say hello!

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Distance and Digital Teaching

Remote Teaching: What I Will and Won’t Miss

Zeba McGibbon

I’ve been teaching remotely for almost a full year… I have just a few weeks left. Many said it couldn’t be done...

Classroom Activities and Lessons

My Favorite Theme Day – Board Game Day

Zeba McGibbon

With the end of the year approaching, I can’t help but get excited for my favorite theme day for the whole year...

Literacy

End of the Year Writing Prompts

Zeba McGibbon

With the end of the year approaching, I like to think about what end of the year writing prompts I can provide...

Teaching Tips and Tricks

Why I Don’t Do A Countdown for Summer

Zeba McGibbon

I’ve been there - so desperate for summer that I start counting down the days. In fact, I do this every year....

Teaching Tips and Tricks

5 Ways to Keep Students Engaged at the End of the Year

Zeba McGibbon

Keeping students engaged at the end of the year can be tough. At this point, they’ve done all the routines and learned...

My Favorite Theme Day – Board Game Day

Classroom Activities and LessonsZeba McGibbon

With the end of the year approaching, I can’t help but get excited for my favorite theme day for the whole year – Board Game Day. I love using theme days at the end of the year to keep students engaged and excited each...

End of the Year Writing Prompts

LiteracyZeba McGibbon

With the end of the year approaching, I like to think about what end of the year writing prompts I can provide that help my students reflect on all that they have learned, the classroom community we have built, and all the fun we...

What’s in my Math Toolbox?

MathZeba McGibbon

The same tools can be used to meet a variety of skills for math small groups or interventions. I keep my math toolbox stocked and ready to go behind my small group table for every kind of math group I might need!

4 Tips for Teaching Sentences to Beginning Writers

LiteracyZeba McGibbon

When teaching beginning writers, it is important to teach them how to write a sentence. I have 4 tips for you when teaching sentences to beginning or struggling writers! Hearing comes first when teaching sentences https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Phonemic-Awareness-Interventions-5550853

Teaching Living and Non-Living Things in Kindergarten

ScienceZeba McGibbon

Teaching about living and non-living things is a crucial foundation to all life sciences, life cycles, biology and ecology. Thinking about living things may be easy, but non-living things are more abstract. Students should be able to group living things together to see the...

3D Shapes for Kindergarten

MathZeba McGibbon

Teaching about 3-Dimensional (3D) Shapes for Kindergarten involves hands-on exploring, explicit teaching, and linking 3D shapes to our real world. With these three things, your students will have fun and learn a lot about 3D shapes! You can get all these 3D shape activities...

Teaching High-Frequency Words in Kindergarten

LiteracyZeba McGibbon

When learning to read and write, learning high frequency words quickly and purposefully can make all the difference. In this blog post, I will go over my best tips for teaching high frequency words in Kindergarten so they actually stick! Want to read other...

Read Across America Week

Classroom Activities and LessonsZeba McGibbon

In case you haven’t heard, teachers and the National Educators Association are moving away from celebrating Dr. Seuss during Read Across America week, because of the growing research on his racist messages within his stories. So instead of celebrating Dr. Seuss, let’s celebrating the...

Addition and Subtraction Strategies

MathZeba McGibbon

I love the time of year when we can start working on addition and subtraction strategies in math. There are three key strategies that I like to teach my students that draw on other important math understandings that we have been working on throughout...

Phoneme Segmentation

LiteracyZeba McGibbon

The best way to increase your students’ reading and writing development is to work on phoneme segmentation. There is a clear order to work on these skills to best support the students in your classroom. For all the skills, you want students to be...