Gender roles in Fairy Tales

Hello! Welcome to the fourth and finals installment of my fairy tales series: gender roles. I promise not to bash Disney too much. If you want to catch up, you can read parts one, two, and three by following the links. This post is about gender in fairy tales, specifically females. We don't want to leave out the boys, because we know there are lots of strong male heroes...

Read More

Gender-specific praise

Hello teachers! September's a great time of year, isn't it? If a new year is starting for you, there's the excitement gettimg your room just the way you want it, meeting new staff, and welcoming more little ones into school. I'll borrow a phrase from a training I went to once and say that it's like opening a brand-new box of crayons. Even if you work in  year-round setting,...

Read More

Science and Math with Infants and Toddlers

Hello! It's that time again! Hot dogs cooking, fireworks popping, baseballs cracking. All these add up to one thing: Source unknown Now, I don't know what feelings you might have about science. Maybe you were never any good at it, maybe you think it's too complicated, maybe you love digging into research and scientific concepts. Maybe you just love going online to...

Read More

An Evil Arises

Hello! Welcome to part 2 of my Fairy Tale series, where we discuss the importance of evil in fairy tales. Grab the popcorn; this is going to be a fun one. (And a long one; sorry.) Please feel free to argue discuss in the comments. If you missed the earlier posts, you can find them here and here. Fairy tales have been around a long time. Cinderella originated in the East...

Read More

Rainy Day Rainsticks

I'm working on part 2 of my fairy tale series, but I had to take a break. The next one's going to be good.  In the meantime, I thought I'd ask the question, "What to do with one-year-olds when it rains?" The answer, of course, is to make rainsticks! This project took us all day and it was so rewarding for the kids as they completed it. I impressed one parent, who said,...

Read More

A Long Time ago in a Land Far Away...

Hello and welcome to part 1 of my fairy tale series! If you missed my last post, you can view it here and get some context. Today, I want to explore what makes fairy tales so enchanting. The fairy tales we know and love today have persisted for thousands of years in millions of iterations. But why is this? The stories in the recently published "Turnip Princess"...

Read More

The Importance of Fairy Tales

There was a teacher who worked very hard for her students. She toiled away, but felt like she was making little difference. One day, she thought, "I wish I could enhance my students' lives a little more. How else can I teach them important skills like independence and hard work and hope for the future?"  Suddenly, a magical prince named Bettelheim suddenly appeared....

Read More

5-month anniversary!

Guess what, everyone? It's my 5-month anniversary! That's right; I haven't posted for 5 straight months! Thank you, thank you; you're too kind. I've had a lot of changes the past 5 months. I switched jobs twice! That's got to be a record. I tried Head Start, but it didn't agree with me. For those of you in Head Start programs and surviving, I give you my undying respect....

Read More