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

What Every Dramatic Play Center Really Needs ~ Ep. 130

What Principals Really Want You to Know About Hiring, Interviews, and Getting the Job ~ Ep. 129

Getting Students to Add More Details in Their Writing ~ Ep. 128

Tips for a Successful Kindergarten Field Trip ~ Ep. 127

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

Science

Life Cycles Activities for Kindergarten

Science

One of the biggest concepts I teach my students in science throughout the year is life cycles. We learn all different kinds of life cycles and each cycle I follow a similar routine! Do you do life cycles activities in your classroom? Check out these tips...

Exciting Activities for the Life Cycle of Pumpkin

Science

The life cycle of pumpkin is a fun way to continue learning about life cycles while staying in the festive fall spirit. Students enjoy exploring and observing the pumpkin, as well as learning about how the pumpkin grows and changes over time. Life cycle of pumpkin: Seeds One...

Understanding the Life Cycle of an Apple

Science

Studying the life cycle of an apple is a great way to engage students in learning about life cycles and living things! Students can hold and observe apples clearly, plus it is a fun fall theme! There’s plenty of science learning that can happen too! Start with...

Teaching Living and Non-Living Things in Kindergarten

Science

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 important characteristics...

Planning Lessons for Kindergarten Science

Science

If you are getting ready for a new school year and/or a new grade level, you may be planning some curriculum over the summer. I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about how I plan for science and offer some suggestions. If you are looking...

Science Questions to Ask

Science

The most important part of any science unit is not the experiments or activities or teaching… but rather the science questions that the teacher asks. So what should we be asking and when should we use ask them? Why science questions? Children learn best when they create...

Earth Day Activities

Classroom Activities and Lessons

Earth Day is coming up! I have to be honest – growing up I never cared about Earth Day. I want my students to feel differently about this important holiday. The activity ideas in this post come from my Earth Day activities product on Teachers Pay...

Plant Inquiry for Kindergarten

Science

Planting is an important and reoccurring science unit in the younger grades. I prefer to take an inquiry approach to planting. I’ve already outlined my plant unit for kindergarten, but I want to go into more detail about the key experiment in this unit, available in...

Kindergarten Water Unit

Classroom Activities and Lessons

The kindergarten water unit is a huge topic to cover in science and is touched on in many grades throughout a child’s life. In kindergarten I try and introduce my students to the key understandings of water through fun, hands-on experiments and activities. All of these...

Ladybug Life Cycle For Kids

Science

One of the main focuses in kindergarten science is understanding life cycles. What is a better way to learn about life cycles than to observe them?! One of the easiest life cycles to observe is of insects because each part of the cycle does not take...