Little Learners Bloom with the Teach Your Way Collection

Growing as a reader. Growing as a writer. Exploring the 5 senses. Understanding spatial skills. These early learning skills are some that every teacher strives to teach their young learners. PBS LearningMedia helps children learn these necessary skills and gain confidence, grow and blossom. Find the whole resource set in the Teach Your Way collection of PBS LearningMedia. 

March into Spring

Explore the March calendar,to spark curiosity in your classroom. Just as spring is blooming, the  calendar is bursting with ideas to spring forward in a positive way. 

During the 2021-22 school year, this timely collection of flexible resources, aligned to monthly themes and skills, are specifically designed for PreK-2 students. Use the monthly Teach Your Way calendar and teacher planner to integrate media in creative and developmentally-appropriate ways.

Here are just a few resources to check out - plus dozens more to explore. 

What’s better than Peg + Cat? Peg + Cat with a Treasure Map, ready to measure for buried treasure. Students watch a media clip, and then will have a better understanding of counting, measuring and thinking of alternative solutions when solving problems.

The video is a great way to engage young learners to have fun while practicing non-standard measurement and comparison math skills. Teachers can extend the activity by having the kids measure using their shoe from the door to another part of the classroom. In this activity, you can work on important math standards - and get them moving around the classroom. 

I Love Words|Sesame Street  Little words, big words, rhyming and more, Abby Cadabby sings a song about the words she loves. Abby encourages kids to sing along and have fun with vocabulary. 

Many young children love music and it can be a helpful tool to encourage vocabulary building. This song by Abby Cadabby focuses on her love of words. Students can rhyme along with Abby, practicing their phonemic awareness skills.

Nature Plant | Nature Cat: How Plants Drink? Nature Cat wishes he was more like a plant, because then he wouldn't have to worry about running out of energy or eating, but Daisy says that plants need energy and water too.

Foster your students’ curiosity about nature and plants with this Nature Cat resource. Co-view this video to introduce and investigate what plants need. Students can re-tell the video using the Nature Cat puppet printables, all while practicing their observations of plant survival patterns.

Teach Your Way, Throughout the School Year 

Each month, enjoy a fresh set of resources, printables, lesson starters and ideas. The PBS KIDS team continues to support teachers, families, and students with resources and a new version of a teacher planning kit. The Teach Your Way collection is updated from September to May with timely early childhood resources. We will produce one calendar per month and highlight lesson plans, videos, media, games, and printables found on PBS LearningMedia.

There’s so much content available through the Teach Your Way collection and calendar; pick and choose what you need to support your students! You know your students best and can pull what meets your needs. There are countless ways for high engagement activities with PBS KIDS characters your students already know and love that are rooted in the curriculum.

English and Spanish, Great Search Function Tool to Find What You’re Seeking

PBS LearningMedia has a growing number of resources, from printables and activities to videos, in Spanish. Check out some of the resources here. Another great way to find resources in Spanish, use the search function at the top right of the website, and filter by language, grade, subject and resource type. Also, you can find an overview of how to explore resources in different languages – many ways for educators and families to engage with PBS LearningMedia.

Maximizing the Home-to-School Connections

A great resource for families to enjoy is the Growing as a Reader Bingo. A PBS KIDS resource, it is designed for fun and learning, and an interactive way to download, print and play at home. Available in both English and Spanish, this popular Learn-At-Home resource offers weekly activities that cross curricula while emphasizing social-emotional learning, math and literacy development.  

Growing as a Reader Bingo is one of my favorite resources! I use it in my at-home learning kits. If the students’ complete and return, we give them an extra reward, which could be a prize from our social-emotional cool down bin or extra choice time during a program. Bingo is a positive way to reinforce a school-to-home connection. Families can send photos of their students engaged with the game, and we post the pictures in the library or classroom. The kids feel proud of their work.

The resources available on PBS LearningMedia are always expanding, so be sure to regularly check back for more that you can integrate into your classroom. Find a robust selection of media resources to help families and educators alike. Be sure to check out the Booster Pack for the Teacher Planning Kit with print and digital options, here.

Abigail’s Teaching Tips

1. I do. We do. You do. ‘I do’ is the main content with the teacher demonstrating that day’s lesson. ‘We do’ could be working together as a group for a specific activity. Then ‘You do’ allows the student to independently work on the day’s lesson. 
2. Rhymes, repetition and the whole body. Using Peg + Cat as the example, teachers could have the kids stand up each time they hear the word ‘map.’ Or they could create a heart movement with their hands. These kinesthetic activities help students stay engaged and retain information.

Start with high engagement. Get the ‘buy in’ motivation from the onset, whether from a video or another attention grabber. This also helps with retention.