Andrea Knight

Teacher · Learner · Author

Taking the “Scary” Out of School Safety Drills

School safety drills are so important and, though they're probably not our favorite thing to talk about, we need to prepare children for the kinds of emergencies they could encounter during the school year. The problem is, they're a little bit scary... at least for some kids. The alarms are loud and there's a sense of urgency that jolts us out of our routine... even when we know it's coming. I … [Read more...]

Chrysanthemum Activities for the First Day of School and Beyond

We read this sweet book by Kevin Henkes at the beginning of every school year, but these Chrysanthemum activities work well beyond the first day of school. If the story is new to you, it's about a little girl (mouse) with an unusually long name... Chrysanthemum. It doesn't bother her one bit though. She loves her name and thinks it's absolutely perfect. That is, until the first day of … [Read more...]

Fun Activities for Teaching Prepositions

Teaching prepositions and positional words is fun when you use games and other engaging activities. Little ones will eventually put pencil to paper, but let's begin with some out-of-your-seat fun first! From Simon Says to a fun twist on musical chairs, these ideas will really get the ball rolling. First though, let's grab a quick library of books about prepositions. These can be used at any … [Read more...]

Grammar Activities for Learning Parts of Speech

Finding grammar activities that are fun and engaging is important. Why? Because I have friends (grown adults, mind you) who still crab about the time they had to learn the parts of speech and then diagram sentences. I mean these are people who are decades out of school, yet they continue to remember those experiences negatively. And, kind of like I used to say after geometry class, they wail, "Why … [Read more...]

Kindergarten Math Games

Setting up kindergarten math games doesn't have to be a chore. There's enough on our teacher to-do lists. So adding fussy tasks to an already long list just isn't necessary. To keep things simple, I started making these one-page math games years ago for our first graders. They're so simple to prepare and once the kids understand the directions, they want to play them over and over … [Read more...]

Female Inventors Who Changed Our Lives

Three cheers for female inventors! Although they haven't always received the recognition they deserve, female inventors have had a significant impact on our lives. Many of their inventions are still part of our world today. I mean, come on. Can we hear it for Ruth Wakefield and the deliciousness she brought to our lives with the chocolate chip cookie? Thank you Ruth. From Josephine … [Read more...]