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!

recent

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

Top Strategies for Teaching Personal Space in Kindergarten ~ Ep. 118

Minimizing Disruptions During Kindergarten Small Groups ~ Ep. 117

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

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

Math

Loving Teaching While Using New Curriculum ~ Ep. 29

Math

Apple Spotify Amazon Music Episode Summary This week I have Mona from Honest Math Chat on to discuss navigating new math curriculums. Mona is a former math avoider, teacher & instructional coach in Chicago. Her passion for math came when she discovered how to engage every student in a subject...

How to Teach Addition in Kindergarten ~ Ep. 25

Math

Apple Spotify Amazon Music Episode Summary In this episode of the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, I go into the foundational aspects of teaching addition to kindergarteners. Emphasizing the progression from concrete objects to abstract representations, I want to stress the importance of utilizing diverse strategies like counting all, counting on, and...

Math Intervention for Kindergarten – Ep. 18

Math

Apple Spotify Google Amazon Music Episode Summary Today I would love to talk to you about how to work smarter, not harder, when it comes to math intervention with our kindergarten students. This would also be relevant for kindergarten, first, and second grade. Math intervention is something that we definitely need to...

Exploring Number Relationships: Creative Activities for Kindergarten Math – Episode 13

Math

Apple Spotify Google Amazon Music Episode Summary In this episode of the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, we dive into the topic of understanding number relationships in math. It is crucial for students to grasp concepts such as number order, what numbers come before and after, and understanding what numbers are more or...

Kindergarten Shape Adventures: Engaging Hands-On Learning

Math

Apple Spotify Google Amazon Music Episode Summary Hey teacher friends! In today's episode we are talking all about teaching shapes, specifically 2D shapes with students early on in the year. This is one of the first units that I do with my students, and it's something that a lot of them...

Exploring Counting Math Centers in Kindergarten Classrooms

Math

Apple Spotify Google Amazon Music Episode Summary In this episode we are talking all about one of the really foundational math skills that kids learn in kindergarten, which is counting. Some kids who come to us totally already get this skill and know how to count up to 100 plus, and...

Decomposing Numbers in Kindergarten

Math

There are many important math skills for children to learn in kindergarten, but a key foundational skill they need to learn is number decomposition. Teaching decomposing numbers in kindergarten can sometimes be overlooked. But, it should be embedded into whole group and small group activities all...

5 No-Prep Kindergarten Addition Math Games

Math

There are so many fun kindergarten addition math games for children to play to practice learning addition strategies and facts. Kindergarten addition math games should be easy for the children to understand so that the main focus can be on solving addition problems and working on...

Simple, yet Effective, Small Group Instruction in Kindergarten

Literacy

I hear a lot of teachers asking how they should handle small group instruction in kindergarten. Small groups can be a daunting task when the students’ attention spans are sometimes 10-15 minutes long! How do teachers fit it all in? What do they do with the...

Easily Make Kindergarten Measurement Worksheets Engaging!

Math

Young children need hands-on learning, so how do we teach measurement and make kindergarten measurement worksheets engaging? We use the kindergarten measurement worksheets to guide exploration and investigations of measuring around the classroom. Kindergarten measurement worksheets should include measuring length, weight, and comparing objects. Non-standard vs. standard...