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Welcome to Kindergarten Cafe!

I’m Zeba, and I’m here to help you find the *kindergarten magic* in your classroom. I create resources and share strategies to make your teaching easier, more engaging, and focused on those magical moments of growth with your students. Whether you teach kindergarten, preschool, or first grade, you’ll find ideas and activities to bring that *kindergarten magic* to life. Feel free to reach out—let’s make teaching kindergarten magical again!

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Classroom Activities and Lessons

Making the Shift to Systematic Phonics Instruction with Melanie ~ Ep. 126

Literacy
Simple Phonics Skills That Help Kindergarten Students Become Confident Readers Teaching kindergarten is full of magic moments, but one of the biggest is when reading finally clicks for a student. You can literally see the moment it happens. A child who has been slowly learning letters suddenly...

Kindergarten Addition Tips and Extensions ~ Ep. 125

Math
Kindergarten Addition Strategies for All Levels of Learners Addition is one of the foundational math skills in kindergarten, but it often comes with a wide range of student needs. In some classrooms, you might have students who are struggling to grasp what addition even means, while others...

Small Group Ideas for Kindergarten Reading Comprehension ~ Ep. 124

Literacy
How to Teach Kindergarten Reading Comprehension in Small Groups When you're working with students who have solid decoding skills, it's time to focus on building their comprehension. In kindergarten reading comprehension small groups, your instruction should center on helping students understand, discuss, and apply their understanding of...

Decodable Books vs Leveled Texts in Kindergarten ~ Ep. 123

Literacy
Decodable Books vs Leveled Texts: What’s Best for Beginning Readers? There's a lot of buzz in early literacy about whether to use decodable books or leveled texts, especially in kindergarten classrooms. It's an important topic—one that impacts how students learn to read and how confident they feel...

Unpacking Mid-Year Assessment Data ~ Ep. 120

Classroom Activities and Lessons
How to Use Kindergarten Mid-Year Assessments to Guide Instruction and Support Students Mid-year assessments can bring up a mix of emotions for kindergarten teachers. You’ve worked hard for months, and now it’s time to evaluate student progress. But what if the data doesn’t reflect the growth you...

Easy Small Group Ideas for Blending and Decoding Success ~ Ep. 119

Literacy
How to Support Blending and Decoding in Kindergarten Literacy Small Groups When students know their letter sounds but struggle to blend them into words, it can create a roadblock to early reading. Blending and decoding in kindergarten is a foundational skill, and some students need targeted small...

Help Kids Move Beyond Labeling to Writing Sentences ~ Ep. 116

Literacy
How to Help Kindergarten Students Transition from Labeling to Writing Full Sentences Teaching kindergarten writing sentences can be one of the most rewarding yet challenging parts of early education. Many students enter the classroom ready to share stories with enthusiasm, but when it's time to put those...

Kickstart the New Year with Growth Mindset Strategies ~ Ep. 115

Holidays
Apple Spotify Amazon Music You definitely want to one teach students about how our brains are working and why challenges and mistakes are important in the learning process and two you want to celebrate the effort that they're putting in and the progress that they're making and not just...

A Developmental Approach to Teaching Writing with Melissa from Teaching to Transform ~ Ep. 114

Literacy
Apple Spotify Amazon Music If you don't allow that independent time where they are showing you whether they want to write or not, showing you whether they draw pictures or not, if you don't allow that, you don't know what to teach them. You don't know what they're ready...

Managing Math Expectations and Math Materials ~ Ep. 113

Math
Apple Spotify Amazon Music Counting collections are an awesome way to give kids lots of extra accounting practice. And as they get going through the year, they can really work on showcasing how they are counting, how they're organizing their counters. It's a great way to get them to...
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