Musically Minded

Hi friend 🌟

Some weeks circle time feels automatic. Other weeks, one new activity changes the whole room.

Finding something fresh to bring to your circle isn't just for the kids. It's for you too.

When you're excited about what you're teaching, that energy travels. Kids feel it before they understand it, and suddenly everyone wants to be at circle.

I'm sharing a handful of new songs and moments just like this at Camp Renegade Play this year.

Drop the word CAMP below and I'll send you the link to join me. 🏕️✨

Twenty songs. One spiral notebook. Everything I actually use in my own classroom. 🎵

My Day 1 session at Camp Renegade Play is 20 Songs Every Early Childhood Teacher Needs to Know. Action songs, name games, listening songs, scarf favorites, the ones that get even your wiggliest group locked in.

No fluff. No Pinterest fails. Just the songs that work, twenty five years running.

Camp is free, July 23 and 24, and my songbook session drops on Day 1.

Comment CAMP and I'll send you the link so you don't miss it. 🌟

Guess who's a camp counselor this year? 🏕️

I'm teaching two sessions at Camp Renegade Play, a free two day virtual summit for early childhood educators. Twenty counselors, twenty ideas each, four hundred plus ways to fill your classroom before the school year starts.

I'm bringing 20 Songs Every Early Childhood Teacher Needs to Know on Day 1, and 20 Rhymes & Fingerplays Every Teacher Needs to Know on Day 2. The kind you'll actually use Monday morning, not the ones that sit in a folder.

Kristen Day hosts this every summer, and she gathers the best play based educators she can find. This year's cabin is stacked with loose parts, sensory bins, process art, dramatic play, read alouds, and so much more.

July 23 and 24. Completely free. Watch from your couch, your classroom, or a literal tent if that's your vibe.

Comment CAMP and I'll send you the link. 🎶

You found the perfect wall. You laminated every card. You felt so organized. And the transitions are still a battle. 🧠

Here's the shift most teachers never hear: a schedule on the wall is only step one. It becomes powerful when children actually use it. When you plan the day together at circle, when you stop and say "let's check our schedule," when children move the pieces and watch the day progress, the schedule starts doing the heavy lifting for you.

The schedule earns its keep when children use it together with you.

That's the whole focus of Week 2 in Summer of Learning. Taking the schedule off the wall and into the real rhythm of your day.

Comment SUMMER to join us. 👇

Most early learning leaders I talk to want the same two things: children who are engaged and teachers who aren't burning out.

Those two outcomes are usually one outcome.

When a classroom is designed around how young brains actually learn, through movement, music, and play, several things shift at once:
• Children stay engaged, so behavior settles
• Teachers spend less time managing and more time teaching
• The room feels calmer for everyone in it

Happy kids and happy teachers share one foundation: instruction that aligns with development.

That alignment is Tier 1 work. It's the floor the whole program stands on.